


Crooked Teeth

by GrenadeFestival



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Alex is still a dick, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Amy plays matchmaker, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff, Hoody is also kind of a dick, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Jessica getting shit done, Jessica is really tired of losing her memories, Rare Pairings, implied bisexual Jessica
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5873719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrenadeFestival/pseuds/GrenadeFestival
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica escapes from Alex with the help of a mysterious hooded man. Little did she know the face beneath the mask was one from her past. She knows she should leave and forget this ever happened, but something still compels her to stay...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't even think about this as being a ship for the longest time, but THEN I listened to a playlist on 8tracks (http://8tracks.com/withviolets/x-a-poison-paradise-x) and it got me thinking. How would Brian and Jessica even work as a pairing? What would that look like? And I'm a sucker for "broken man with questionable morals + strong woman who calls him out on his bullshit" pairings, so I decided to write like a drabble just out of curiosity....and it turned into not a drabble. So here you go. Have fun.  
> (Also I'm sorry this first chapter is so ridiculously long. Half of it is sort of a transcript of Entry 76.)

Jessica can’t see two feet in front of her when she wakes up. Her back feels like someone rammed a metal rod up her spine, and every digit is cold and stiff despite the warm, night air. Somewhere in the distance insects chirp, and a soft breeze rustles the bushes around her. Dirt sticks to her hands, and twigs tug as her clothing. She sucks in a breath, and her heart begins hammering in her chest when she realizes that she doesn’t know where she is and doesn’t remember how she got here. 

“What happened?” she says, looking around frantically for someone, anyone, who might be able to help. She tenses when she hears movement near her. Footsteps approach her and she feels a hand on her back. She turns towards whoever is there, but her night vision hasn’t improved any in the few seconds since she woke up. She sees the soft light of what could be a camera, but that doesn’t do anything to reveal the person holding it.

“Who is that?” she asks, but she doesn’t get an answer.

She gasps as a hand clamps over her mouth. She smells earth and wool as she breathes, and as frightened as she is, she gets the message. The hand pulls away, and whoever is there next to her shushes her. Her heart begins to beat faster. She wants to ask where she is, but she doesn’t dare. It sounds like she’s in a forest somewhere, and that thought fills her with apprehension. She’s never been afraid of the woods. She used to play in the woods as a kid, but she’s never been one to wander into the woods at night. There could be anything lurking in the trees.

She hears noise in the distance, and a light sweeps through the branches. The person next to her grabs her arm. His grip is firm, but not rough as he pulls her to her feet. She waves him off. 

“It’s fine, I got it,” she says, looking towards the light in the trees. As she watches the flashlight beam, she begins to wonder who she should be trusting in this scenario. Should she go with this stranger who may be the one who brought her here? Or should she go towards whoever is likely looking for them? She realizes in that moment that she has no way of knowing who might mean her harm. She can’t remember anything that might be useful. And where is that guy from the hotel, Jay? Is he one of these people? Or did someone else take them both?

The other person reaches out again and grabs her forearm, pulling her along with him deeper into the forest. She wants to protest, but she doesn’t. At the very least, this person doesn’t seem to want to hurt her. If he wanted to hurt her, he could have easily done so while she was unconscious. 

They don’t go unnoticed for long. The person with the flashlight shouts, and the beam whips towards them. The other person’s grip on Jessica’s arm tightens, and he pulls her along with more urgency. She stumbles a bit, still unable to see where she’s going, and all the while she feels panic rising in her chest. What is she supposed to do? Then she hears a shot, and she screams. 

A dozen scenarios play out in her mind all at once. She could be killed. The person with her could be killed. Who is this second person shooting at? Should she run? Should she stop and beg for mercy? She doesn’t get to decide. Suddenly she’s jerked forward as the person leading her breaks into a sprint. Another shot rings out. The hand on her arm disappears, and she’s left stumbling blindly forward. The sound of footsteps begins to fades as the stranger with the camera runs deeper into the woods, and more shots rings out as the person with the flashlight pursues. She drops to the ground, hands over her head as she waits for it to stop. She wonders if she should grab a branch or something to use as a weapon. 

“Jessica! Jessica, calm down, it’s me, Alex. I’m Amy’s boyfriend, do you remember?”

The person with the flashlight drops down in front of her. She can barely make out his face in the light, but he seems somewhat familiar. He mentioned Amy. Amy, yes she remembers Amy. Alex though...she’s not sure. She’s not sure of anything, but she knows she can trust Amy, so surely she can trust her boyfriend.

“Um, yeah, I remember Amy,” she says. 

“Ok, good,” he says, his words quick and clipped, as if he knows they don’t have much time to speak, “Now I know that everything is really confusing right now, but I’m going to get you out of here. Just follow me.”

“Ok,” she says, getting to her feet. Alex seems to know what he’s doing, and she’s surprised that he’s as calm as he is. Surely he knows what’s going on, and she’s hoping that he’ll explain it all to her once they get out of this God-forsaken forest. 

Something on the ground catches her eye, and she realizes that it’s the light from the camera that the other person had been carrying. He must have dropped it in his hurry to get away. She starts walking towards it, further up the path that might lead them out of the trees and back towards a road. 

“No, this way!” Alex says. 

She stops. 

“What, deeper into the woods?!” she asks, unable to believe that he’s suggesting they get themselves even more lost. 

“I know a shortcut. Come on,” he says. 

She groans, but she can’t argue. All she wants is to get out of this place. She bends down to pick up the camera. 

“What are you doing?!” Alex asks. 

“The person that woke me up had this,” she says, taking the camera into her hands and brushing a leaf off of it, “It might have whatever’s going on on it.”

Judging by the noise Alex makes, Jessica can tell that he’s not entirely pleased with her decision. 

“Alright, we’ll look through it later, but for now we need to go,” he says. 

Jessica fits her hand through the camera’s strap and follows him. Her stomach is in knots, but at least she can see through the camera’s night vision so she won’t trip on anything, and if they get separated she’ll need some way to see. It makes her feel just a tiny bit better about this whole situation.

Alex doesn’t say much as they walk. Jessica wants to pepper him with questions, but she decides against it since he seems to be in a hurry. Mostly she wants to know who the guy who originally had the camera was, and why Alex was shooting at him. She also wants to know what’s out here that’s making Alex so jumpy. Alex didn’t seem afraid at all of the other guy, so what’s out there that they  _ should  _ be afraid of? Is it another person? Or something else entirely?

She doesn’t like the way the flashlight seems to stop short of the closest trees or the way the night vision on the camera only works if she’s looking at Alex directly in front of her. It leaves far too much to the imagination. Sometimes she thinks she hears footsteps beyond their own or the flash of a shadow behind the bushes. Each perceived threat in the corner of her eye makes her heart beat more furiously as adrenaline continues to shoot through her veins. 

“I don’t like being out here,” she says. 

“Trust me, neither do I, but we’re almost there,” Alex says. 

Jessica isn’t sure if she should believe him. He seems awfully comfortable out here, and he seems to know exactly where they’re going. She can’t imagine how many times he must have come out here if he’s able to navigate this easily at night. To her every path and tree looks the same, but Alex can read the endless turns and barely distinguishable landmarks as if he were walking through his own house. 

“What were you doing in the hotel anyway? Why didn’t you just go home?” he asks. 

She’s taken aback by the question, and she doesn’t want to admit the answer. 

“I can’t remember,” she murmurs, realizing how silly that sounds. People don’t just forget where their homes are, but somehow she’s managed it. 

“Don’t remember what?” Alex asks. 

“I can’t remember where I live,” she says, “Like I know what the house looks like, I just…”

“Don’t remember how to get there,” Alex finishes. 

“Yeah.”

“That’s ok, that can be fixed. Once we get out of here I’m going to tell you everything.”

Just those two sentences are enough to make her feel much more relaxed despite the nagging fear in the back of her mind. 

“Ok, I’m so confused,” she says, almost as an afterthought. 

Her mind turns back once more to the person who was there when she woke up. 

“Who was that back there?” she asks. 

“The person in the brown hoodie?” Alex asks. 

Was it brown? She’s not quite sure. 

“Yeah, I didn’t get a good look at him,” she says. 

“All you need to know is that it’s someone who wants to hurt both you and me,” Alex says. 

Jessica is a bit surprised by that. He hadn’t seemed particularly violent to her, but then again how would she know? She never even spoke with him. She wants to ask more questions, but she doubts Alex would answer them. They both go silent. 

The woods seem to stretch on forever and the path seems to be going nowhere. As they walk deeper and deeper into the woods, she wonders how this can possibly be a shortcut. She gets the feeling that if they had gone the other way, they would be out of the woods by now. The noisy chirping of crickets makes her nervous, and she wonders if anyone was sneaking up on them if they would even be able to hear it. As if on cue, Alex stops and looks off into the bushes behind them. 

“Hold on,” he says. 

“What is it?”

“I think I hear something.”

“What, like footsteps?”

“I don’t know, maybe. Let’s keep going.”

She feels a twist of anxiety in her gut. She hopes that whoever attacked her in the hotel isn’t following them. Every time she tries to remember what happened, all she feels is nauseating fear and panic. She can’t remember much - everything after going back into her room to pack is a bit fuzzy - but what she does remember is enough to leave her shaking. All she can recall is a white face, like a mask, rushing towards her too fast for her to react. She doesn’t know what happened after that. It’s all just blackness in her memory, just like the two dark eyes that seemed burned into the back of her eyes. She wonders if  _ that  _ is who was with her when she woke up, but that doesn’t seem right. Surely she would have seen a bright white mask, even in the dark. 

She glances down at the gun in Alex’s hand. She realizes that she hopes that no one is following them not only for her own sake but theirs. She wonders if Alex hit the man who was with her when he started shooting. She doesn’t think so, but she can’t be sure. If there’s anyone out there who might not be involved, they could very well end up with a bullet through their chest. The fact that Alex seems perfectly capable of that doesn’t do anything to put her mind at ease.

Suddenly the trees end and they’re standing in front of a huge concrete tunnel. The sight of it makes her nervous. Something about its gaping black mouth and its sheer size makes her think that anything could be lurking in there, waiting for them. 

“We’ll go around the other side of this tunnel,” Alex says, “Careful on these rocks.”

Alex stops as they enter the tunnel. 

“Here, take the flashlight and keep going ahead. I’m going to make sure nobody’s following us.”

His voice echoes off the tunnel’s concrete walls as he passes the light to her, making the structure’s stifling emptiness all the more noticeable. She’s not sure she likes the idea of going ahead by herself. She has no idea what could be out there, and she certainly doesn’t know the way. What if that guy in the hoodie is there waiting for them?

“But, what if-?”

“Just go ahead, I’m going to catch up to you on the other side,” Alex says, pointing down the tunnel, “Go.”

The way he says it, she almost believes that it really is completely safe. She takes the flashlight and turns around, walking slowly through the tunnel. She takes a deep breath and tries to listen for any sign that someone else might be further ahead. 

“Do you see anything?” she asks. 

There’s no answer. 

“Alex?”

She turns around, wondering if maybe he’s seen someone out there. Maybe someone snuck up on him without her hearing. What she sees is far worse than that. 

“What are you doing?!” she asks, her eyes fixed on the barrel of the gun pointed straight at her head. 

“It’s all Jay’s fault, Jessica, I’m sorry,” he says.

A lump of ice drops in her stomach. Her eyes widen. 

“No, Alex, stop!” she cries. 

What can she say? There has to be something she can say to make him change his mind. Why does he need to kill her? Why did any of this have to happen to her? 

“It has to be done.”

He raises his hand up to his eyes, as if he can’t bear to watch what he’s about to do. Jessica’s heart is kicking into overdrive. Her breaths come quick and shallow. 

_ I’m not going to die here.  _

“No!” she yells. 

Then she’s on him, kicking and hitting at him to get him away from her. Her foot hits him right in the crotch, and just like that he’s down and the gun is on the ground. She snatches it up and scrambles away from him, pointing the gun at him. 

“Stop!” she says. 

He seems shocked that his plan didn’t work. He clearly wasn’t planning on her fighting back. 

“Jessica-,” he says.

“No, shut up!” she yells, as if anything he can say will smooth over the fact that he was  _ going to kill her,  _ “Stay right there!”

That’s when she hears the footsteps. She’s afraid to take the gun off of Alex in case he tries anything, but he doesn’t seem to be focused on her anymore. She turns around and sees the figure in the hoodie walking towards them from the other end of the tunnel. She hesitates, turning from Alex to him and back again. Alex said the man in the hoodie wanted to hurt her, but then again Alex was the one who pulled a  _ gun  _ on her. She doesn’t feel like she can trust either of them at this point. She’s trapped.

She doesn't get a chance to act. Before she knows it the man in the hoodie is running. She braces for an impact, but she's not the one he wants. He runs right past her and jumps on Alex. He starts laying into him, battering his face with startling fury, and Jessica sees her opportunity. She drops the gun, picks the flashlight back up from where it fell, and starts sprinting towards the other end of the tunnel. 

When she hits the woods, her instincts tell her to keep going and get as far away from the grappling men as she can, but she stops. She doesn't know where to go. If she runs out into an unknown part of the woods, she could easily get lost thereby putting herself in even more danger. She needs to retrace her steps if she’s going to find a way out, but that means…

_ Bang! _

She gasps and spins around, but she can't see far enough ahead to see what's going on. It’s too late to make a decision. She switches off the flashlight and crouches in a cluster of bushes. Twigs scratch her skin and she thinks she feels a spiderweb sticking to her, but she doesn't care. She wishes she could melt into the trees and disappear completely. She puts her hands over her mouth, trying to hide how hard she's breathing, and she waits. 

She hears someone shouting and footsteps racing out of the tunnel and into the undergrowth. 

“Yeah, keep running!!” Alex shouts, “But you can't outrun me forever!”

Jessica tenses as the footsteps run right by her and into the trees. She watches the mouth of the tunnel through the night vision on the camera to see if Alex will come out too, but the camera isn’t powerful enough to see that far back. She listens for any sign that Alex might be pursuing her or the hooded man, but all she hears are faint,echoing footsteps as he goes back into the tunnel and disappears, his mission failed on all counts it seems. 

She releases a breath and realizes that until Alex goes away completely, she's going to be playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with him. She doesn’t know if waiting in the bushes a while will give him enough time to leave, or if he’ll continue roaming the forest anyway, searching for her. She wonders if the hooded man is still out there, but the idea of approaching him fills her with apprehension. He might not be out to hurt her, but that doesn't mean she can trust him.

She stays crouched in the bushes for what feels like forever. Her head hurts as she feels a migraine building up behind her eyes. Her legs begin cramping up, and her back aches from bending over so long. Finally she can’t stand it anymore. She unsticks herself from the mess of branches and leaves and stands up. She leaves the flashlight off, using only the camera to navigate up a small slope and into the trees. She stifles a cough as she finds a path and begins to follow it. Finally, once she feels she’s far enough away from the tunnel, she turns on the flashlight. It’s easier to see where she’s going, but she doesn’t feel any safer. She curses herself for not taking off and running farther while she had the chance. 

The trees feel like they’re getting thicker, and slowly but surely she begins to feel more and more afraid as she walks. She thinks she hears something moving behind her and she begins to walk faster. Then she starts to run. She sucks in air, but no oxygen seems to reach her lungs. She’s so tired, and she didn’t realize it until now. She’s not sure how much longer she can go on like this. The migraine starts to get worse and she skids to a stop. She starts coughing, and when she looks up she thinks she sees an unfamiliar figure in the trees. 

“Hey!” she shouts, running towards the figure, “Over here!” 

She moves to get out of the way of a large tree, but as soon as she does the figure seems to disappear. She stops and sucks in a breath. She didn’t hear any movement, so where did they go? She didn’t imagine them did she? She stops and looks around. 

“Hello?!” she calls, “Please help! I don’t know where I am!”

Then she hears a cough and the rustling of leaves as someone hurries towards her. She turns around and the flashlight beam illuminates a figure running towards her. She realizes it’s the hooded man, and this time there’s no Alex here for him to be running for instead. 

“Wait, stop!” she cries, stumbling backwards. Her words are cut off but a cough that burns in her throat. The hooded man grabs her arm. She tries to pull away, but he’s stronger than her and in a hurry. 

“No, let go of me!” she shouts, but he just pulls on her more frantically. He pleads with his gestures for her to follow him, and she wonders what it is he’s so afraid of. Is Alex coming after them? She turns her head the way he came and thinks she sees the same figure from before further off among the trees. The hooded man coughs again, and this time when he pulls on her arm, she relents and follows him deeper into the woods. 

They crash through the trees, only sometimes following the neglected trails through the woods. She can hear the man’s ragged breathing as they run, and she wonders if he’s ok. She thinks she catches a glimpse of red on the arm of his hoodie and wonders if Alex actually shot him. Finally they come to a stop in a flatter part of the forest and the man doubles over in a coughing fit, leaning against a tree as he tries to take a breath and gets nothing but more coughs burning in his chest. She hovers at a distance, wondering if there’s anything she can do to help. 

“Are you alright?” she asks, trying not to sound as nervous as she feels, “What was that back there?”

The man gestures at her to hang on a second, and with his back still to her he pulls of the black mask over his face and coughs up what looks like blood into the dirt at his feet. Jessica tenses and grips the flashlight tighter. 

“Oh my God,” she says. She starts to go to him, but he waves her back, gesturing violently for her to keep her distance. She does, but only for a moment, and as the fit finally subsides she takes a few careful steps towards him. 

“Who are you?” she asks, “Please, I don’t know what’s going on and I...I…”

She sucks in a shaky breath, trying to hold herself together. The hooded man straightens up and wipes his mouth off with his sleeve. At least she knows the source of the red now, but that doesn’t make her feel any better. Something must really be wrong with him. He pulls the mask back on, and she thinks she catches a glimpse of his face, but it’s not enough for her to work out his identity. She wonders if she did see his face if she would even know who he was. It doesn’t seem likely. 

He doesn’t say anything in response to her numerous questions. He simply beckons for her to follow him deeper into the trees. She obeys without protest this time, but she is careful to stay alert in case he tries anything. He doesn’t say a thing to her as they walk. At first she thinks he’s just being rude, but after a while she starts to wonder if he is even capable of speaking to her. 

Eventually they come upon a broken down shack hidden away in the trees. She stops as they approach it and looks around. The hooded man glances back at her but doesn’t seem concerned by her apparent fear. He makes no move to usher her inside, as if he doesn’t care one way or another what she does now. She hears him cough once from inside the shack, and after a moment’s hesitation she steps inside. 

The place is a mess, and it’s clear that it’s been abandoned for quite some time. There’s a small side room, no bigger than a closet, where there appears to be a mattress and a blanket. The hooded man rummages around inside until he finds a bottle of water. 

“Is this...is this where you live?” she asks. 

He looks at her, but he doesn’t answer her question. He simply pushes the bottom of his mask up to take a drink of water. Finally she can’t take it anymore. 

“What the hell is wrong with everyone?! Everyone is either trying to kill me or they refuse to tell me what’s going on. I’m tired of blindly following people around, wondering if I’m ever going to know what happened to me! I don’t even know who I’m supposed to trust anymore! If you’re not going to answer any of my questions, at least tell me how to get out of here because I’m done!” she shouts. 

The hooded man seems taken aback by her outburst, but he seems to understand her frustration and just nods. 

“Take the path that way. You’ll hit the road eventually,” he says. 

She’s surprised by how quiet and hoarse his voice is. She can’t tell if it’s from his coughing fit or if it’s because he just hasn’t used it in so long. It wouldn’t surprise her if it were the latter. Even he seems surprised that he actually spoke to her. 

“So you  _ can _ talk,” she says, a hint of bitterness in her voice. 

She starts to turn away but her stops her. 

“But,” he says, “I wouldn’t.”

“Why?” she challenges. 

“Alex,” is all he says, and she realizes with a frustrated sigh that he’s right. He’s probably still out there, wandering around the way he was before. 

“It’s not like I’m much safer here with you,” she says. 

“I won’t hurt you,” he says, holding his hands up. He starts to retreat back into his closet. Jessica takes a step towards him. 

“Hey, wait,” she says, “Why was he trying to kill me? What did I do?”

He pauses a moment, and Jessica thinks for a second that he’s going to clam up again and stop talking to her. 

“You saw it,” he says. 

“It? Saw what? I don’t understand.”

He looks back at her. 

“That thing. I know you saw it,” he says, his voice starting to sound less hoarse than it did before but still just as quiet, “ _ It _ made you forget everything. It got you, so you had to die.”

Jessica’s breath catches in her throat. He says it so casually, as if he were explaining a math problem or why the sky is blue. She wants to know more, but at the same time she’s too afraid to push any deeper. If simply seeing...whatever he’s talking about, was enough for Alex to want to kill her, maybe it’s best that she not know any more than she already does. 

“Did it get you too?” she asks. 

He takes a deep breath and sighs. He doesn’t give her a straight answer, but his silence speaks volumes. 

“You should sleep,” he says. He gestures to the closet as if to say, “it’s all yours.”

“I’m not sure I can,” she says. 

He just shrugs. Not his problem. He walks to the other end of the shack and peers out the doorway into the night. Jessica begins to realize just how dead tired she is. As much as lying down and resting appeals to her, she’s not sure she wants to leave herself so vulnerable. The hooded man said he wouldn’t hurt her, and he certainly seems more trustworthy than Alex, but she still doesn’t feel good about leaving herself open to attack. Even if he’s not the threat, if something happens she might not be able to wake up fast enough to react. She’s done with being unprepared. It’s time to start fighting back. 

She sits down against the wall and looks out the door into the darkness. As she wonders what’s out there beyond her field of vision, she remembers the camera in her hands. It’s still on. She stops recording and considers watching the tape to see if there’s anything on it that might give her a clue about what’s going on. She looks back up towards the opposite doorway into the shack and opens her mouth to ask the hooded man a question, but he’s gone. She feels a moment of panic, but reasons that he may have just gone out to make sure they weren’t followed. 

She turns her attention back to the camera and begins rewinding the tape. She goes past every moment from here to the time she woke up, feeling a bit queasy as she remembers how trusting she was. How naive. She stops when she reaches the beginning of the tape. Unfortunately, there’s not much to see, but it’s enough to make her skin crawl. She hadn’t hallucinated the man in the mask. He and the hooded man worked  _ together,  _ and they brought her out here.

She stops the tape and shuts off the camera. She takes a deep breath, feeling no more enlightened than before. She jumps when she hears footsteps scraping across the floor of the shack as the hooded man returns from his scouting. She gets up and approaches him, holding the camera out. 

“Here. You can have this back,” she says. 

He takes it back without much acknowledgement and returns it to the closet area with the rest of his things. Jessica watches him, wondering why he has a camera anyway, but that isn’t the most pressing question on her mind. 

“Why did you bring me out here?” she asks, “Who was that other guy in the mask?”

“He’s not coming back,” is all the hooded man says, as if to comfort her. She doesn’t want to admit it, but it does. 

“That’s not really an answer, you know,” she says, releasing a frustrated breath. 

“We were trying to get you out,” he finally says, “You’re not a part of this.”

“Well I am now, so hiding things from me isn’t going to help anyone. Look, if the reason Alex came after me was because I knew too much, then it’s too late for me to go back and act like nothing happened. What if he comes back? I need to be able to protect myself.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just takes a breath, as if debating with himself whether or not to honor her request. 

“Please,” she says, “Just... _ help  _ me.”

“Ok,” he says, “Ok.”

* * *

 

Jessica is extremely pissed at herself for falling asleep. When she wakes up, she’s still in the shack using the wall as a pillow. There’s a tattered blanket that feels grimy to the touch draped over her that she doesn’t remember retrieving, and the hooded man is gone. She groans as she sits up, working the stiffness out of her joins as the morning sun streams through the many open windows. Her stomach growls, and she’s dying for a drink of water. When she gets up she looks out the windows for any sign of the hooded man, and she spots him crouching out in the trees, his dull yellow hoodie only just visible among the branches. 

“Hey!” she calls as she exits the shack. 

He turns around to look at her, and she’s a little startled. She hadn’t realized there was anything painted on his mask last night in the darkness, and she finds the two simple red eyes looking at her a little unsettling though she tries not to let that deter her. 

“Hey, you said you had to show me something in the morning,” she says, remembering a brief conversation they had last night before she dozed off. He promised her answers, but not until morning when he was sure Alex would be gone and they could leave in peace. He seems to remember their conversation as well, and he stands up and starts walking past her towards the path nearby, gesturing towards her to follow him. 

“Where are we going?” she asks as she trots along behind him, struggling to keep up with his larger steps. She doesn’t get an answer, though she’s not sure why she expected one. 

“Do you think we can head back to the hotel at some point? All my stuff and my car is still there,” she says. 

He nods, but again he doesn’t say anything. 

“So when you talked to me last night, was that a one-time thing?” she asks. 

He looks back at her, and though the mask over his face reveals nothing she feels like he’s glaring at her. She doesn’t push the issue though, and they continue walking in silence. Once they get out of the forest and start heading more towards town she starts to feel safer, but also more nervous.

“Um, don’t you think you should take that off?” she asks. 

He just shrugs. 

“If we’re going out in public, then we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

She hopes he at least considers the idea. Surely keeping his identity from her isn’t more important than getting arrested for disturbing the peace. 

The road is largely deserted, even as some stores and houses come into view. Jessica can't remember what day of the week it is, but it must be the weekend if there are so few cars. She starts to ask the hooded man how far the walk to wherever they're going is, but she doesn't. It doesn’t matter. They’ll get there eventually. Instead she focuses on trying to remember her way around town in the hopes that maybe she can remember how to get home. 

Some things look familiar, such as the run down Dairy Queen they pass by and the bridge they're heading towards, but other things remain shrouded in uncertainty and none of the roads offer her memory any clues as to where they might lead. She hopes that Alex wasn't lying about her memory problems being fixable, but considering everything else he lied about she doesn't feel very confident. If she can’t return home and she’s not safe in a hotel anymore, then where else does she have? In one blow it feels like her life has been destroyed completely. 

Eventually they end up somewhere near downtown. Jessica thinks she might know where they are, but the memory teases her and doesn’t come back completely. As she starts examining the buildings more closely, she realizes that they’re right across the street from the public library. The hooded man stops and reaches into his pocket. He points to the library and hands her a slip of paper that looks like it was torn from a piece of newspaper. Written across it in dark marker are two words: Marble Hornets. 

“What?” Jessica asks, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

He just gestures towards the library again. Then he turns and starts off down the street. 

“Hey, wait!” she calls, “Are you going to come back?!”

He’s already turned the corner and disappeared. If he heard her, he doesn’t show it. Jessica runs to catch up, but when she looks down the street she doesn’t see anyone. He’s vanished. She sighs in frustration and looks back at the paper. Of course nothing can be simple. He can’t just tell her what “Marble Hornets” means and make it easy. What does he have to do that’s so important anyway? 

_ Whatever.  _

At least the library has air conditioning. 

When she walks inside she has no clue where to start. She can’t decide if Marble Hornets is a book she’s supposed to be looking for or if it’s something else. Should she use the library database or go straight for the computers? She decides on the latter. No use beating around the bush. She enters “Marble Hornets” into Google, half expecting nothing to come up, but something does. She gets a twitter account and a YouTube channel and her blood runs cold. 

She clicks on the first link and plunges directly into the world of tapes and monsters. 

 

It takes almost two hours for Jessica to get through all the videos on the channel as well as the videos on the second channel that the hooded man conveniently failed to mention. Several times she has to get up and walk around to clear her head, especially whenever the man in the white mask appears. She watches in mute horror and fascination as Jay goes through tape after tape of footage. Each entry is more unsettling than the last, and as the videos begin to run out she feels an increasing amount of panic. She knows now why Jay was in the hotel and why he was being so secretive, but she still doesn’t know where seven months of her memory went and she still doesn’t know what happened to Amy. More and more new pieces are thrown into the equation with every minute of footage that she views, and she doesn’t know where to fit any of them. The creature in the background. The masked men. Alex and his questionable status as victim and attempted murderer. When she finishes the most recent video, uploaded only yesterday, she feels completely overwhelmed by questions that may not have answers. 

She logs off the computer and goes outside to sit on the library steps. She doesn’t know when the hooded man might be back, or if he’ll be back at all. She doesn’t think he would abandon her after promising to lead her back to the hotel, but then again she doesn’t know much about his character. He was nowhere to be seen in the videos on the Marble Hornets channel. 

The channel. Oh God, the channel. She doesn’t want to think about it, but it’s the only thing she  _ can  _ think about. Even though it provides her far more information than she had before, it’s only a fragment of the whole story. She wonders if she even wants to know the rest. Even these fragments have horrible implications, such as what really happened to her roommate. Who knows where she and Alex went after fleeing from the house? Who knows if she’s even still alive? She feels a lump forming in her throat, and she takes a few deep breaths to try and pull herself together. The thought that Alex would kill his own girlfriend is inconceivable. She just hopes that Amy had the same idea she had and managed to escape. 

Determined not to dwell on it, she thinks about Jay instead. There are no new videos, so she has no way of knowing if he made it out alive. Could Alex have come after him as well? Could he and Alex be working together? He didn’t seem like a bad person to her. A liar perhaps, but not a murderer. A large part of her never wants to view that YouTube channel ever again, but another part still wants to keep tabs on it in case it turns out Jay  _ is  _ still alive. If he still wants to investigate after all of this, whatever he finds might be useful. Maybe once things have calmed down, she can find him again and get this mess sorted out. 

She thinks about the cast and crew of Alex’s movie next and wonders where they went. She doesn’t know most of them. Tim, Sarah, and Seth all look unfamiliar to her, but Alex’s main actor, Brian, she definitely knows him. She was never friends with Alex, but she does remember one weekend where Alex came up to visit Amy and brought Brian along. Alex and Amy were mostly preoccupied with each other, and they left Jessica and Brian together once to entertain themselves. She liked Brian. He was charming and funny and… She feels her cheeks warm a bit at the memory. That had been a very good weekend. Shame that he lived so far away. Otherwise she would have liked to keep in touch. Considering the scene Jay found in his house, his outlook seems about as good as Amy’s. She hopes that when her hooded friend returns he can provide some answers. 

Almost as if on cue, she looks up and sees someone lurking in an alley across the street. The hooded man appears out from behind a dumpster once he sees he’s caught her attention. He gestures for her to cross the street, and she gets up. Once the road is clear, she darts across and joins him behind the dumpster. He crosses his arms and tilts his head slightly, silently asking if she was able to figure it out. 

“Yeah,” she says without a bit of hope or cheerfulness, “I saw it.”

Satisfied, he grabs her hand and starts leading her deeper into the alley. 

“Hey, wait!” she says, pulling back and coming to a stop, “I know that wasn’t the whole story. I know there’s more you’re not telling me.”

He sighs, clearly not eager to have this discussion right then and there, but he doesn’t keep walking and instead waits for her to continue. 

“Can you at least tell me what happened to everyone? All those people Alex knew, Tim, Brian, and Jay and Amy. Do you have any idea where any of them are?” she asks. 

The hooded man ponders this question for a moment, as if deciding just how much to tell her. She expects him to make some promise that he’ll tell her everything later or even just ignore the question completely, but to her surprise he finally speaks. 

“I know about a few,” he says. 

Then he turns and starts walking down the alley. Jessica hurries to catch up. 

“Who?” she asks, “Amy?”

“No,” he says. 

“Jay?”

“He’s alive.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I will soon.”

She isn’t sure what he means by that, but she’s not sure she wants to push it any further. 

“What about that guy Jay talked to? Tim?”

He pauses a moment. 

“No.”

“What about Brian?”

He pauses again, much longer than the first time, and Jessica begins to wonder if she said something wrong. 

“Yes,” he finally says. 

“He’s not…? I mean Alex didn’t...did he?” she asks. 

The hooded man laughs slightly, bitter but smug. 

“He tried.”

Jessica narrows her eyes. Something about his voice, his laugh, is bothering her, nagging at the back of her mind. 

“So where is he?” she asks carefully. 

“Here and there,” he answers, and she can almost hear the self-satisfied smile in his voice, “Though he’s not quite himself these days.”

“I met him once,” she says, “A few years ago, I think. He was nice.”

“Hmm,” he says, pondering that for a moment, “He thought you were nice too.”

A chill goes up Jessica’s spine. 

“And,” he continues, “he’s touched that you haven’t forgotten about the creek and the Dippin Dots.”

She stops, and it all clicks into place. 

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah. Time sure flies.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback to when Brian and Jessica first met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here have a cute fluffy chapter with Jessica being awkward and Brian just...being Brian. I just want to let you all know that this is a work of fiction and I do not in anyway share the views of the characters. Dippin Dots are delicious.

“Jess! What are you still doing in your pajamas?!”

Amy was dressed to the nines as usual. No matter the occasion, Amy always looked good. She could be hit by a nuclear bomb and her hair would still be straight and frizz-free, makeup still on point. Jessica never possessed such talent, and she felt extra out of place in her baggy shirt and men’s pajama pants next to her roommate. 

“I just woke up,” Jessica said, heading for the kitchen to get some sugary cereal in her before her growling stomach ate her alive. 

“Alex is going to be here in any minute,” Amy said. 

“So what?” Jessica asked, “He’s  _ your  _ boyfriend.”

Amy sighed. 

“Ye-ah, but he said he’s bringing a friend, and I’m not going to let you meet him dressed like that.”

“Amy, would you stop trying to set me up with people? I  _ can  _ get my own dates, you know.”

Amy scoffed. 

“Name one date you’ve gone on that you set up by yourself.”

“That guy from the physics department.”

“Ugh, are you talking about that creepy guy who won’t stop texting you?”

“Um...maybe?”

“Jessie, honestly.”

“Well maybe I don’t want a date anyway! Have you considered that?”

Amy grinned. 

“You’ll want this one. I’ve met Brian, and trust me he is  _ so  _ hot. And he’s funny. You like funny guys, right?”

“Amy…”

“Oh come on. At least meet him? He’s sweet. Trust me.”

“I was kind of hoping for just a day in, watch a movie…”

“Ok, so do that.  _ With him.  _ Just go get dressed, come on.”

Jessica realized in that moment that neither hell nor high water could make Amy back off, so with a weary sigh she turned and started heading back upstairs to her room to get dressed. Her Reese’s Puffs were going to have to wait a little while longer. She grabbed a mostly clean pair of jeans off her bed and pulled on the first shirt she found in her drawer. As she combed through her hair so Amy wouldn’t go off the handle about her greeting their guests with bedhead, she heard the doorbell ring. 

She hovered at the top of the stairs, listening as Amy greeted Alex and invited him and his friend inside. 

“Hey! How was your drive?” she asked. 

“Not too bad,” Alex said. 

“That’s good. You didn’t torture him with  _ too  _ many bad jokes, did you Brian?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My jokes are always good,” said a new voice who Jessica figured must be Brian. 

“Hm, yeah, sure,” Amy said. 

“How’ve you and Jessica been?” Alex asked. 

“We’re good. Not much to tell other than what you already know. Speaking of Jessica,” Amy said. 

Jessica groaned internally. 

“Jess! Are you going to come down here?” Amy called. 

“Just a second!” Jessica said. She took a breath, hoping that Amy wouldn’t make this weird. Then she walked down the stairs and over to the door. 

Well, at least Amy wasn’t lying about Brian being attractive. Whether or not he was sweet like Amy said remained to be seen. Jessica had been set up on plenty of dates with guys and even a few girls who Amy swore were really nice but who just weren’t her type. They were either too loud or they tried too hard or they were too awkward. Amy never set her up with anyone downright creepy, but one doesn’t have to be a stalker to be unpleasant. 

“Brian, this is my roommate, Jessica,” Amy said. 

“Hey,” Brian said, “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you,” Jessica said. 

“So are we ready to go?” Amy asked. 

“Go? Go where?”

“Oh, we’re going to the fair that’s in town. Didn’t I mention?”

_ No, no you did not mention.  _

Jessica feels a stab of panic. Of course. How did she not see something like this coming? Of  _ course  _ Amy would spring a social trap on her like this. If she backs out now it’ll be all “aww Jessica why not? Come on it’ll be  _ fuuuuun! _ ” Maybe if she’d been allowed to eat her Reese’s Puffs before this, she would have been awake enough to see something like this coming. Or maybe that was Amy’s plan from the beginning.

_ Amy I’m going to kill you, I swear to God.  _

“I’ll drive,” Amy says, grabbing her keys off the table near the door. 

 

The town’s local fair is often nothing special. Ancient rides that look ready to fall apart at any moment, over-priced and grease-filled food, and surly ride operators praying that no one with a weak stomach decides to get on their ride before their shift ends. Despite this, however, it still attracts plenty of people looking to escape the heavy washed-up-farm-town feel that often permeates the city, and when the group arrives, the ticket line is surprisingly long. 

Jessica watches as families and groups of teenagers pay for their tickets, and she realizes with a start that in her moment of panic leaving the house, she totally forgot to grab her wallet. She checks her pockets, praying that she has a fiver she forgot to take out of her jeans somewhere, but she has no such luck. She walks up next to Amy who is hanging onto Alex, seeming blissfully unaware of her plight. 

“I hope you’re prepared to pay for my ticket,” she says quietly. 

“Hm?” Amy says, looking back at her, “Oh shit.”

“Yeah. You should have told me we were going somewhere!” 

“Everything ok?” Alex asks. 

“Jessie’s a bit strapped for cash,” Amy says, “Do you have any extra?”

“I don’t think so,” Alex says, “Brian? Do you have any cash?”

“I might,” Brian says. 

Jessica feels her face warming. 

“No, you don’t have to do that,” she stammers.

“No it’s ok, I don’t mind,” he says. 

“I’ll pay you back once we get back to the house,” she says.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Jessica puts her hands in her pockets, feeling beyond embarrassed and extraordinarily pissed at Amy for forcing her into this situation. She wants to just melt into the ground and drain into the sewers where only the rats can judge her. Brian tries to give her a reassuring smile, but she doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t seem to mind though, and the group enters the fairgrounds without anymore trouble. 

“Ok, we definitely need to go on the Sizzler,” Amy says, “Oh! And the Skymaster! Definitely that one.”

Brian laughs. 

“I think I'll pass on that one,” he says. 

Time seems to freeze as Jessica realizes what Amy is doing. She’s no wuss when it comes to fair rides, but going upside down is probably her least favorite thing. Of course Amy knows this. Already Jessica can see her roommate’s evil plan unfolding before her, and she feels totally helpless to stop it. There’s no way to stop the Find Jessica A Boyfriend train once it starts going. 

_ Maybe I just need to relax. If I get all flustered I’m just going to be playing into Amy’s hands. I just need to stay cool and show her that she can’t just throw me at a guy and expect something to come of it.  _

So she takes a deep breath and does her best to banish her anxiety.

The fair is relatively crowded along the main drag. The air is full of conversation and the loud rumbling and creaking of the rides as they fling people back and forth in a hundred different ways. Jessica tries to enjoy herself as they hit the tamer rides first, but this whole mess has put her into a bad mood, and her smiles feel fake. Finally the moment she’s been dreading comes as Amy declares that she and Alex are going on the Skymaster. 

Jessica briefly considers sucking it up and going on the ride, but then she remembers what happened last time she went on something that tipped her upside down and decides that sitting this out with Brian will be the lesser of two evils. The line shouldn't take longer than twenty minutes to get through, and then the ride only lasts for a few minutes. She can survive that long, and none of that time involves experiencing unpleasantly high g-forces. 

“See you in a few!” Amy says as she and Alex get in line. Jessica doesn't miss the wink Amy gives her, and for a moment she debates in her head the pros and cons of going to jail for murder. 

“Is it just me, or has that line gotten longer since we passed it last?” Brian muses. 

“It...might have,” Jessica says. 

Neither of them say anything for a few seconds and Jessica wonders if Brian is feeling as awkward as she is. Part of her hopes he is, but she realizes that none of this is his fault. He's as much of a victim as she is. He's just handling it better. She envies him for that. 

“Hey, I saw a Dippin Dots stand a little back that way, and I can't pass that up,” Brian finally says, “Care to join me?”

“Dippin Dots?” Jessica asks, making a face. 

“You don't like Dippin Dots?!” 

Brian looks as if Jessica just told him that she had an extra toe growing out of her ankle, and she can't help but laugh a tiny bit at his reaction. 

“Dippin Dots are  _ weird! _ ” she says, “They're not even real ice cream!”

“So?! They're good!”

“Not really.”

“Ok when was the last time you had Dippin Dots?”

“Um...I don't know. Does it matter?”

“I bet I can make a believer out of you.”

“I doubt that.”

“Ooh, big mistake.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Never issue me a challenge.”

And just like that Brian’s grabbed onto her hand and they're off towards the stand. Jessica has to stop a moment, wondering what on Earth came over her. She’s barely talked to Brian this entire time, but after one brief exchange she feels like her mood has somehow lifted exponentially. 

_ So much for not letting Amy win,  _ she thinks, but she has to admit: Brian’s cheerfulness is contagious. 

At the stand, Brian orders a large size cup of Rainbow Ice flavored Dippin Dots. Jessica stares at the colorful mess of spheres, feeling mildly disgusted by this affront to ice cream everywhere. “Ice cream of the future” reads the sign. She sincerely hopes not. Brian hands her a spoon. 

“See, this particular flavor isn’t ice cream. It’s sherbert. So you’re right, it’s  _ not  _ real ice cream,” he says. 

“It’s still weird,” Jessica says, but she takes the spoon from him and tries a bit anyway. She has to admit they taste good, but it’s a little hard to enjoy when her tongue feels like she just licked a fence in the dead of winter. At least, this is what she imagines it would feel like. Either way, it’s not pleasant. 

“Yeah, still weird,” she says. 

“Oh come on.”

“It doesn’t bother you when they stick to your lips?”

“Eh, I’m used to it.”

A moment of silence passes between them, and Jessica takes to rolling a few of the more frozen dots around on her spoon before they start melting into colorful puddles. 

“So,” Brian says, “I’m getting the impression that you don’t really want to be here.”

Jessica snorts. 

“What gave it away?”

“Did Amy drag you along?”

“Yeah. She kind of sprung it on me, but I guess if she had told me ahead of time I would have said no.”

“Not a big fan of amusement parks, then?”

“I guess I don’t  _ mind  _ them but…”

_ But that’s not entirely it.  _

Of course she can’t just come out and say that he’s indirectly the reason she doesn’t want to be here. He’s far from a willing accomplice, and she doesn’t want to make things any more awkward than they already are. Better to pretend that it’s just the rides making her nervous. 

“I don’t know,” she continues, “I’m just not a fan of being flipped upside-down.”

“Yeah, me neither,” he says. He pauses a moment, “Want to do something else?”

“There’s not a whole lot  _ to  _ do here.”

“I mean like go somewhere else.”

“What? You mean like... _ ditch  _ Amy and Alex? That’s so mean.”

“Well Amy dragged you out here against your will and made you feel uncomfortable. You have every right to leave.”

“Yeah, and what about you?”

“Alex’ll forgive me. He knows I’m not a huge fan of these places either.”

Half of Jessica’s brain is telling her to be the bigger person and not be rude, but the other half is cheering her on and telling her to be petty and run off with the handsome guy to who-knows-where. She knows Amy will be super pissed off, but then again...

_ Hang on.  _

That’s when it hits her. Amy would be absolutely  _ thrilled  _ if Jessica ran off to be alone with Brian. It would make her goddamn  _ day.  _ Sure if Jessica does it, she’ll be doing exactly what Amy wants, but at the same time she has a golden opportunity to run away and get out of here without offending her roommate. Opportunities like this don’t just pop up, and she realizes that she would be stupid not to take it. It’s so perfect, she could have sworn Amy planned it this way though that seems impossible, right? 

_ Screw it.  _

“Alright,” she says, “Let’s do it.”

 

Jessica  _ cannot  _ stop laughing. It’s a wonder she’s still paying attention to Brian at all. The only thing she can hear is her own voice, struggling for breath between fits of giggling. Brian hasn’t stopped grinning since they first started telling funny stories, and the smile still refuses to fall from his face as he continues his current anecdote. 

“So at this point,” he says, trying to stop himself from giggling long enough to finish, “at this point, I’m standing on the desk, unable to get down. Hannah is covered in soda. At least half the class is screaming, Tyson included. The professor is still nowhere to be found. Alex is panicking, and Jay is just sitting in the back of the room just  _ watching  _ us, and I realize that he’s been filming this the  _ entire  _ time. And the pumpkin is  _ still  _ in one piece.”

“I cannot believe you guys did that,” Jessica says once she’s caught her breath, “I had no idea film school was so exciting.”

“It definitely has its moments. You should hear about the time we went to the mall just to get some B-roll and almost got arrested.”

Brian takes a sip of his soda, giving her a coy look out of the corner of his eye. 

“Well come on, don’t leave me hanging!” Jessica says. 

Brian puts the bottle down, his grin reestablishing itself firmly on his face. 

“Ok,  _ well- _ ”

The midafternoon sun is baking, but down by the side of the creek with the branches of a study ash tree looming over them, it’s hardly noticeable. The plastic containers of long gone deli sandwiches sit between them, weighed down by rocks so the breeze won’t whisk them away. Jessica isn’t sure how long they’ve been here, but she honestly doesn’t care. This is the most fun she’s had in awhile, and more and more she finds herself wishing that Brian didn’t live halfway across the state. He’s one of the most genuinely kind, funny guys she’s met in a while, and she finally sees why Amy was so insistent on Jessica meeting him. 

They keep talking and laughing for the longest time until they both run out of stories to tell. They stop for a breather and listen to the sounds of the leaves above and the creek below. Jessica tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear and smiles. 

“I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in awhile,” she says. 

“Well I do have that effect on the ladies,” Brian says with an air of false bravado. Jessica gives him a look, but she can tell he’s just teasing. 

“So, uh, how long are you going to be in town?” she asks. 

“A few more days, but I probably won’t be super avalible.”

“What are you up here for?”

“Visiting family. Alex was already coming up here to visit Amy, so I just hitched a ride with him to save on gas. I took today to goof off, but the rest of the weekend I’ll be swamped.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“My cousin is getting married.”

“Aww, that’s cool. So are you from here?”

“No, I’m actually from Nothport, but I’ve got family scattered all over the state.”

“Sooo...you come up here often?”

Brian grins. 

“Not really, but I could.”

Jessica laughs and looks down at her knees, playing with a piece of her hair. Brian pauses a moment and leans in a little closer. 

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re really pretty?” he asks. 

Her heart rate skyrockets, and she feels a hot rush of blood go to her cheeks. 

“No one I like,” she says. 

“Ouch, I’m offended,” he says, though his eyes are still smiling. 

“What? Oh, no! No, I didn’t mean it like that!” she stammers. 

He laughs. 

“It’s ok, I know what you meant,” he says, “Not too many decent guys around here then?”

“Not much decent  _ anything  _ around here,” she says with a sigh, “Which is why meeting you is unfortunate.”

“Oh?”

“You’re going to tease me from across the state,” she heaves a dramatic sigh, “Oh what could have been.”

“Well you know it doesn’t have to be ‘could have’.”

“I’m not really a big fan of long distance.”

“Yeah,” he says, sounding the most serious he has all day, “Neither am I.”

Brian lays back on the grass and shuts his eyes. Jessica stares up at the sky, cursing her rotten luck. Of  _ course _ all the dateable people she meets would be gay, straight, taken, or live too far away. That’s just the kind of love life she has. 

_ Maybe I should get a cat, throw myself into my work, and become the single spinster who lives down the street growing vegetables and practicing witchcraft.  _

Jessica checks the time on her phone. 

“I should probably get going. I had no idea we’d been out here so long,” she says. 

“But the ground is suddenly sooo comfortable...” Brian mutters. 

“They’re probably going to call us sooner or later asking us where we went.”

“Then let’s just wait until they do. You didn’t have anything to do today, did you?”

“No, not really.”

Brian pats the ground next to him, his eyes still shut in lazy bliss. Jessica hesitates a moment, but she eventually gives in. She sets aside the sandwich containers and lies down next to Brian on the patchy grass. Eventually she shuts her eyes and lets the soothing sounds of the park lull her into some place between waking and dreaming. Nothing else seems to exist. It’s just the creek, the trees, and the goofy but charming boy by her side. Soon she forgets that she was ever nervous about meeting him. In this moment, being with him is effortless.

_ Rrrring! Rrrring! _

Brian sucks in a surprised breath and bolts upright as his phone starts going off in his pocket. Jessica opens her eyes and sighs. Fun’s over. Brian stands and finally shuts the infernal contraption up. Just as Jessica suspected, it’s Alex on the other end of the line.

“Hey man, what’s up?...Ah, well, you know how I’m not much of an amusement park person, and Jessica and I needed some actual food....Well it looked like you might be in line for a while....We got distracted…..We’re at the park….Yeah...Yeaaaah…...You’re the best, man. Hey, apologize to Amy for me, would ya?....Huh, really? Ok….Ok….Yep, see you in a few.”

Brian hangs up. 

“They’re coming to pick us up. Party’s over, but it was fun while it lasted, eh?”

He holds out his hand and helps Jessica up. 

“Let’s just hope they’re not too mad.”

“I thought Amy would be, but Alex said she doesn’t seem all that upset.”

_ Hmm, wonder why.  _

“That’s good,” Jessica says. 

“Maybe if I have some extra time we can get some real food for lunch before I head back home,” Brian says. 

Jessica smiles. 

“It’s a date then.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man oh man has it been a while. There's not a lot of plot to this chapter, but I wanted to put out SOMETHING for you guys. I'm honestly surprised by how positively this has been received considering the rarity of this pair, and the amazing comments you guys have left me is really making me want to write more. I'm definitely not out of ideas yet. Thank you all so much for your support! ^^
> 
> On the register today is more angst and some sappiness (but hopefully not too much). I want to write some more fluffy stuff and maybe some more suspense for future chapters, so stay tuned for that. :)

Jessica moves with methodical precision as she pulls her backpack out of the backseat of her tiny silver car. She feels like her body isn’t quite hers as she does it. She’s operating completely on autopilot as her brain tries to comprehend all that’s happened. She checks to make sure she hasn't forgotten anything, zips up her backpack, and grabs the pillow she stole from the hotel room. Satisfied, she shuts the car door and locks it. The hooded man - no, _Brian_ \- hovers in the tall grass past the deserted dirt road around the back of the park, staring off into the trees beyond. She clears her throat to indicate she's ready, and the two begin walking off into the rapidly approaching twilight. Jessica takes a breath, unwilling to let the heavy silence around them stick around too long.

“We never did get lunch again,” she murmurs.

“Things happen,” Brian says, pushing past a thicket of bushes.

“What happened to you?” she asks, not bothering to hide the sadness in her voice.

He makes a slightly disgusted sound. He stops and looks back at her, startling her. He seems to study her a moment before sighing and continuing forward into the brush.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says.

She frowns.

“Like what?”

“Like you feel sorry for me.”

“Brian, none of this is your fault.”

“Look, I wouldn’t expect you to understand-.”

_Ok, that’s it._

“You’re right, I don’t! And that’s not my fault! You’ve been nothing but vague and unhelpful this whole time! You know, I’m not something to be pitied either! I’m not some fragile thing that needs protecting! I want to know what’s going on! I want to _help!_ ” she shouts.

Brian seems a little taken aback by her outburst. He stops and looks at her over his shoulder, as if annoyed by her repetitive pleas to let her in, but he doesn’t disagree with her.

“I don’t think you’re fragile,” he says, turning around to face her again.

“Then why are you keeping me in the dark?”

“I think you deserve better than this.”

Still holding out hope she can leave this all behind. She would be touched if she weren’t still pissed. Even so, she understands what he's saying.

_If I do this, I can never go back to normal._

But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. What’s so great about her life anyway? Average grades. Broke as hell. Few friends. Fewer lovers. Unsupportive parents who don’t think English is a good major, and maybe for once they’re right. Stuck. What is she good for now? What’s so great about normal?

“Maybe this _is_ what’s better. If I can help, maybe I can actually make a difference.”

He takes a deep breath. She wishes that she could see his face, know what he’s thinking, but those two red eyes are all she has to look at, blank and emotionless. They offer no clues as to his state of mind, and she realizes that that’s probably why he wears them. In a world of fear where no one can be trusted, a mask is safety. A mask is power. Identities can tie you down with a thousand steel cables, but just one piece of fabric or plastic cuts them like they’re the thinnest of threads.

“Do you ever take that off?” she asks.

“Hm?”

“The…” she gestures at his face.

“Oh. No. Not really.”

“Even when you're alone?”

“You're never _really_ alone out here.”

“Who else knows it's you?”

“You're the first.”

“Oh. Do you really trust me that much?”

He laughs.

“Well you're the only one who isn't trying to kill me. Yet.”

She smiles and tucks a piece of hair back behind her ear.

“Don’t tempt me,” she says, “Although...I guess you did save my life.”

“You seemed to be doing fine on your own,” he says, “Nice swing, by the way.”

“Yeah, I suppose I _did_ do most of the work,” she says, teasing him.

Just like that, she feels as if she’s been pulled back in time to the fair and the creek. It’s as if nothing has changed since the last time she saw him. Even bitter and bloodied, Brian has still retained some of his effortless charm, capable of calming even the most frayed of nerves. She forgets her anger and sadness, and just for a few seconds allows herself to smile. She’s surprised by just how easy it is to be with him, as if everything is right with the world and nothing is expected of her except to just _be._ The feeling doesn’t last nearly long enough, though, and just as soon as the Brian she met five years ago appears, he’s gone, and they both fall silent as the cicadas sing in the trees above them. She takes a breath.

“So what now?” she asks.

He shrugs.

“We wait.”

“Wait? Wait for what? For Alex to come back and try to shoot us again?”

“He won’t find us.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I know what he’s like. He’ll wait before trying anything again.”

He stops and takes a breath. A soft, airy laugh escapes him. Jessica finds it unnerving, though she can’t explain why.

“Though to be fair, I guess I don’t know him _that_ well anymore,” he says, sounding more distant than before, as if he’s forgotten he’s speaking to anyone besides himself. Jessica feels her heart rate spike.

“I guess I wouldn’t know,” she says, “I only met him once or twice. I never really talked to him.”

“I barely recognize him now,” he continues, “He’s become...distorted. Fractured.”

He takes a deep breath and balls his hands into fists for a moment before relaxing again. He hovers for a moment, as if he wants to say more, but in the end he falls silent again. Jessica isn’t sure what to say. She looks at the forest around them and realizes just how long they’ve been standing here.

“We should go. It’s getting dark,” she says.

“Right,” he says, shaking off his daze.

The walk is long, and as the shadows fall around them, it becomes nearly impossible to see where they’re going. The cicadas continue to sing despite the darkness, and the humid summer air feels sticky on Jessica’s skin. Only a cool breeze passing through offers some relief. Jessica’s foot hits a fallen branch in the darkness, and she gasps and stumbles forward, managing to catch herself before anything worse happens. For a moment she loses Brian in the dark. She hears footsteps in front of her, and she hears Brian fiddling with something. She sees a red pinprick of light blink on and hears a click as Brian switches on his camera’s night vision mode. She feels Brian reach forward to touch her arm and then her hands. Her fingers find the rough knit of his gloves, and she grasps his hand tightly. She finds herself stumbling less as he guides her deeper into the trees.

“Remind me to put that flashlight in my backpack when we get back,” she says.

They pass through clearings and along paths, soft light guiding them through the park as the moon finally rises above the trees. Finally they arrive at the shack Brian calls home. Jessica deposits her backpack on the floor and sits down against the wall, holding the pillow close to her chest. She watches Brian as he retrieves a bottle of water from his closet. He holds it out to her, and she takes it without a word. The water feels warm and condensation is forming in the top of the bottle. She unscrews the cap and takes a swig before handing it back to him. The water tastes like minerals, and she wonders if he got it from someone’s garden hose.

Brian pushes up the bottom of his mask to take a drink, and Jessica sighs.

“It’s just the two of us, you know,” she says.

When he ignores her, she stands up.

“Brian, come on. I’m tired of talking to a piece of fabric,” she says.

She stops and takes a breath. She reaches out and touches his forearm. His hoodie feels somewhat damp from humidity, and she wonders how he can stand to wear it all the time. Is he really so suspicious of the world?

“If we’re going to work together, I need you to trust me, and I need to be able to trust you,” she continues.

He heaves a sigh and sets the water bottle down on the ground.

“Alright,” he says. He sounds almost ashamed, but he doesn’t fight her any more about it. He reaches up and grips the front of the mask, crumpling the blank, red eyes and breaking their unwavering stare. It slips easily over his head, finally revealing his face, but the person Jessica sees looking back at her is nowhere near comparable to the person in her memories. She reaches up and pushes the hood back off his head, wondering if the darkness is playing tricks on her.

He looks thin. Like he’ll split open at any moment. She doesn’t remember his eyes being so sunken or his lips so dry and cracked. There’s a bruise forming on his jaw which she doesn’t notice at first because of the unkempt stubble growing over it. His hair is shaggy and uneven with abruptly ending locks sticking out at odd angles, as if he cut it himself just to get it out of his face.

She tries to remember how he looked that summer so long ago, but the image eludes her, replaced instead by this fragile man with cold eyes as hard as granite. He’s coiled tight like a metal spring, jaw set, hands curled into fists. Jessica doesn’t notice. Her mind keeps buzzing with memories of the fair and the park and lying on the patchy grass with the sun on their faces, and she wonders for a moment if this is all just a nightmare. This man can’t possibly be Brian. She reaches up and touches his cheek, half expecting him to shatter into tiny fragments and blow away. Instead, he melts.

He shuts his eyes and releases the breath he was holding. The tension in his shoulders falls away, and the hard lines of his face soften. The knot in her stomach unwinds. She releases a soft, airy laugh and smiles.

“Hey there,” she says.

The corner of his mouth twitches up, trying to smile back but just falling short. He opens his eyes and takes her hand away from his face, holding it loosely in his the way one might hold a sparrow or sharp fragment of glass.

“If I’d known I was going to have a guest, I would have shaved,” he says.

“Don’t worry,” Jessica says, smiling, “I won’t judge.”

* * *

 

 

Jessica wakes up to the sound of crinkling plastic and gravel crunching underfoot. She feels sticky and warm, and her hands are covered in grime, but at the very least her stolen pillow and Brian’s makeshift bed have saved her from stiff, aching muscles. She sits up and stretches as Brian comes into the room, carrying a small grocery bag.

“Morning,” she mutters.

She looks out the window, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“What time is it?” she asks.

Brian shugs and sets the bag down.

“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” he says.

“I suppose not,” she says, “What’s that?”

“Breakfast. Kind of,” he says, “Oh, and-,” he reaches into his pocket and withdraws a folded piece of paper, “-I found this.”

Jessica takes the paper from him and opens it up. Scrawled on what looks like a piece of scratch paper from the library is an address and a hand-drawn map. After a second of staring at it, in clicks. This is where she lives. She _knows_ that house number, that street. She can picture the house in her mind: square and yellow with a white porch and vines growing up the side. She can picture the street immediately in front of it, yet the memory of how to get there eludes her.

_But Brian’s taken care of that for me._

She can go home.

“I...how did you find this?”

Brian shrugs.

“Internet.”

He pauses a moment as he takes a box of Poptarts out of the plastic bag. It sounds like he wants to say more, but he has put his mask back on since last night, and once more Jessica has been shut out of his head.

“And,” he continues, “I may have been there once or twice.”

“What? Why?”

“I’ve been following Jay and Alex around for the past seven months. They went there looking for Amy.”

She pulls her legs in close and rests her head on her knees.

“You really don’t know what happened to her? Where she is?”

“I have no idea where she is, no,” he says.

“I just...I’m so worried that something might have happened to her. That Alex might have…”

She stares at the ground and tries to fight back images of Amy, covered in blood, alone, dead or dying by Alex’s hand. Broken and crumpled among the leaves with no one there to mourn her. It’s seared into the back of her eyes. She can’t think of anything else no matter how hard she tries. She sniffs and wipes at her eyes, trying desperately not to cry and failing.

“I just think she’s dead,” she whispers.

Brian gets up and sits next to her on the mattress. She looks at him.

“Brian, if she’s dead, please just tell me,” she pleads.

“I don’t know for sure,” he says gently, “But...I think she probably is.”

Jessica’s heart seizes in her chest, and this time there’s no holding back the hot, angry tears from spilling down her cheeks. She digs her fingernails into her legs and rests her forehead on her knees. She feels Brian’s arm wrap around her shoulders, and after a moment she finally relents and lets him pull her into a hug. She buries her face in his shoulder, breathing in the scent of salt, sweat, and forest leaves as he smooths back her hair.

“He’s a monster, Jessie. An absolute monster,” he murmurs, “I’m so sorry.”

“Why is he doing this?” she sobs, “He _loved_ her, we all did!”

“He thinks he has to. He thinks what he’s doing is going to fix everything, but it’s not. He’s just making it worse. He’s just spreading it.”

“I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe she’s really gone.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “but it’s ok. We won’t let him hurt anyone else.”

* * *

 

Jessica yanks the notice off her door and examines it. “Eviction notice” read the bold, block letters at the top. It’s strange to think that she’s about to lose her home. She never imagined something like this would happen to her. She’s always been so responsible, and yet within a few days she’s found herself homeless and on the run. Bills will get sent from her college that will never be paid. Her grades will tank. They’ll expel her. Her and Amy’s home will get rented by someone else. Her stuff will get moved to a storage space to collect dust. Taxes won’t be filed. Licenses won’t be renewed. Her job will fire her for being gone one too many times, if they haven’t already. She’ll just...disappear. Maybe someone will report her missing. Maybe no one will. Maybe she’ll cease to exist entirely. She doesn’t care.

She doesn’t care at all.

She sticks the notice back up on the door, making sure it’s exactly where she left it. She lets herself in, thankful that the landlord hasn’t changed the locks yet. She starts to turn on the lights, but she stops herself. She can’t let anyone know she was here. Even though it’s the middle of the night, no doubt some of her night owl neighbors will notice a light on in an empty house.

She can’t say if it’s been disturbed or not. The furniture is all where it needs to be, but Jessica has no way of knowing how she last left everything else. Those memories, like so many others, have been lost to time. At the very least, she doesn’t think anything has been stolen, but at this point that doesn’t matter. She’ll be leaving most of this behind anyway.

She climbs up the stairs to the bedrooms on the second floor. She heads for her own room, but she stops as she passes Amy’s door. A chill runs up her spine, and she wonders if she should have taken Brian with her instead of leaving him outside to be look out. She has good memories of her and Amy hanging out in each other’s rooms, watching movies, doing homework, but now they feel tainted by the knowledge of what became of the both of them. Nothing feels safe anymore.

She presses on, forcing herself to stay focused on why they came here in the first place. She enters her room and begins looking at her things, wondering what she absolutely needs and what she can leave behind. She knows she’ll need another change of clothes or two. Whatever she was thinking when she packed her backpack the first time, it was clear she wasn’t expecting to stay in the hotel for long. She must have thought all of this would blow over soon enough.

She picks out some shirts, jeans, socks, underwear, and stuffs them all into her backpack, leaving the least comfortable ones behind. She grabs a rain jacket too and ties that around her waist. She kicks off her flats as well and exchanges them for a sturdy pair of hiking boots. Next she digs out her digital camera, abandoned in a drawer of junk, that her parents gave her for her birthday one year. It’ll finally find some use. A water bottle is the last item to go in her pack. She looks at her desk, at the photos and random trinkets sitting among the books and papers, and she feels tempted to take something with her, but she knows she really can’t bring much. Whatever she brings, she has to be ok with leaving behind if something happens, and she would rather her memories be safe in a storage facility than lost in the woods. The photo of her and her high school friends or the stone dolphin figurine she got from the aquarium in Denver won’t do her any good when danger comes knocking.

She zips up her pack and heads back downstairs to the kitchen. If there’s any food left that’s still good, she absolutely intends to take it. She takes a crumpled plastic bag out of her pocket and shakes it open. She pulls the cabinets open and empties them of anything non-perishable. Soup, crackers, dried fruit. It all goes in the bag. Finally she opens the drawers, searching for a can-opener. Silverware clatters as she yanks open a drawer near the sink, including a few wicked looking kitchen knives. She stops. Should she? She might need it. If Alex comes back…

She grabs the can opener, and, after a moment of hesitation, grabs a small knife and slips it down into her boot.

_That’s it._

She’s surprised by how little time it took to go through her many possessions and how easy it’s going to be to leave it all behind. She thinks about anything else she needs to put in order, feeling very much like a cancer patient waiting to die. The only thing she can’t simply drop is her parents. Eventually someone will contact them and ask where she is. They’ll suffer the most when it finally comes out that she’s missing.

_I can’t do that to them._

She knows it’s stupid, and that they’ll find out eventually that she’s lying to them about being ok, but they’re not just taxes or tuition. They’re her _parents._

She puts the bag of food at the foot of the stairs and walks back upstairs to her room. She yanks open her desk drawer and pulls out paper, a pencil, an envelope, and some stamps. Then she sits down and puts the end of her pencil to the first line on the page. Nothing comes to her. She stares. She stares so long, in fact, that the blue lines across the paper fade and disappear as her eyes unfocus. She doesn’t want them to worry about her, but she realizes that there’s nothing she can say that will prevent that. She looks out the window. Brian wonder what’s taking so long and come up after her if she doesn’t leave soon. She has to do this now.

_“Dear Mom and Dad,_

_I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch. Lately things have been falling apart, and I didn’t want you to worry about me. I dropped out of school and have been working nonstop the past few months, trying to save money. I’m going on a long road trip with friends. I’m not sure where yet. I just think I need to take some time to find myself and figure out what I’m doing with my life._

_I don’t know when you’ll hear from me next, but it might be a while. Don’t take it personally. None of this is your fault. You’ve always taken care of me and I thank you for that, but this is something I need to do by myself. I love you both to the moon and back._

__-Jessie”_ _

Her eyes burn as she folds up the letter and puts it in the envelope. She writes the address on the front and puts more stamps on it than entirely necessary. It has to reach them. It absolutely can’t get sent back. She takes a deep breath and wipes at her nose, refusing to allow herself to cry now, of all times. She puts the letter in her pocket and heads back downstairs.

Outside by the porch, shrouded in the shadows of the trees hanging over the driveway, Brian is waiting for her. She hands him the bag of food and grips the straps of her backpack like a security blanket.

“Are you ok?” he asks.

“I will be,” she says.

Once they reach the curb, she opens the mailbox of a neighbor and slips the letter inside. Brian watches as she closes the door and puts the flag up, but he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t ask. He doesn’t need to. Jessica stares back at her old home one more time before rejoining Brian on the sidewalk. As they run off into the darkness, she feels tempted to look back one last time. She doesn’t. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now back to your irregularly scheduled Angsting In The Woods™. 
> 
> Also, I now have my own playlist for this fic, so if you'd like to check it out, you can find it here: https://playmoss.com/en/grenadefestival/playlist/brianjessica-mix

“I don’t like this,” Jessica says. 

She stares down the long, broken corridor into the depths of the hospital annex. She doesn’t think she’s ever been here, but at the same time the atmosphere around it feels familiar. Something about the energy in this place strikes an ominous chord inside her. The gaping, hollow rooms feel like a vacuum that she’ll never escape if she enters. She balls her hands up inside the pockets of her jacket, and looks at Brian. 

“It’s ok. We only need to find one thing, and then we’ll leave,” he says. 

Jessica sighs. 

“Alright. Where do we start?” 

“Nurse’s stations.” 

As they turn down one of the many branching hallways, Jessica briefly wonders if they should split up to cover more ground, but she decides against it immediately. Going together will be slower, but after almost getting shot in the woods by a maniac, she’d rather not take her chances. Plus she doesn’t actually know what they’re looking for. She follows behind Brian, glancing inside rooms as they walk and listening to the crunch of glass and gravel under their shoes. 

As they take a turn into a courtyard, she notices Brian’s pace slowing. He seems hesitant, even confused, though with the mask obscuring his face it’s hard to be certain. Finally he stops. Jessica pauses a few steps ahead of him. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks. 

“Nothing, just...” he sighs, “I hate this place.” 

“Yeah, it is pretty creepy here.” 

“It’s not that,” he says, “I know something important happened here, and every time I come here I think maybe I’m starting to remember something, but...”

He stops and puts the hand not holding his camera in his pocket and starts walking again. 

“Wait how do you know it was important?” Jessica asks, jogging to keep up with his long strides. 

“Because I never forget the days where I’m just sitting around, twiddling my thumbs,” he mutters.

“You say that like this happens a lot.”

“I’ve got almost five years of exposure to this thing under my belt. Some days I wake up and I can’t even remember my own name.” 

She can’t tell if he’s joking or not. 

“Is that why you tape everything? Because you forget a lot?” she asks. 

“It’s pretty hell-bent on striking me down. It’s all I can do to make any kind of progress,” he says. 

“So...they really don’t come back then. Your memories.” 

He tenses, perhaps wondering if he said the wrong thing. 

“No...not really,” he says, “The tapes help, but it’s more akin to recreating the memory than recovering it.” 

“Doesn’t that bother you?” 

“Only when I let it.”

The first nurse’s station they encounter has been picked clean. The items that used to be on the shelves in the back are long gone. Nothing is left behind, not even the object’s shapes in the layers and layers of dust. 

“There should be another one this way,” he says, heading down another wing. 

“How much memory do you usually lose?” Jessica asks. 

“It depends. I can go for months without losing a single thing, but all it takes is one incident to lose a whole week. But usually it’s just a few days or even a few hours.” 

He pauses. 

“I can’t say I’ve lost as much time as you have. Not in a while anyway.” 

“So it’s...rare for people to lose seven months of memory?” she asks. 

“It probably won’t happen to you again if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“Ok, good.” 

_ I never want to feel that helpless again.  _

She takes a breath as they approach another station. Brian walks into the back room, and after a moment he reemerges with a water-damaged cardboard box. There are dusty, dried-up pens inside that look like they’re from a whole other decade, along with some wooden pencils, a stapler, and a few blank hospital wristbands. Sitting underneath the junk are some old forms. Brian takes them out and starts flipping through them. 

“So I'm guessing this is that ‘important thing’ that's going to clear up some other ‘things,’” she says. 

“Maybe. It might not be at this station or it might not be here at all.”

He glances up at her. She blinks and sets her mouth into an unimpressed scowl. 

“Fine, sorry,” he says, “Tim’s medical records. That's what we’re looking for. He told me a while ago that he grew up here. He mentioned his old doctor’s office burned down, and far as I know this is the only burned out hospital anywhere near here.”

“Why do you need his records?” she asks.

Brian starts putting the records back in the box, having found nothing worth keeping. He taps a gloved finger on the desk, leaving small dots in the dust cover. 

“He’s...been lying to me for quite a while about a lot of things. This  _ thing  _ has been with him longer than he says. If I find his records, they’ll prove it.”

“Yeah, you told me earlier you don't trust him anymore,” Jessica says. 

“No, not for a while.” 

“What happened?” 

Brian puts the box back in the filing room and they start heading down another hallway. 

“Do you remember the video on the Marble Hornets Channel where Jay went to my house? The first time?” 

“Yeah. The place was a wreck. Was it Alex?” 

“Yeah. He almost killed me. With my symptoms the way they were, I didn't have a chance. I don't remember how I survived. I'm surprised I even remember him coming to my house. Before then, Tim was close to quitting this whole thing.  I tried to convince him that I couldn’t take on Alex alone, and I thought he at least understood that. I thought even if he didn’t want to help me directly that he would at least help me by watching my back. The moment I knew something was wrong, I tried calling him, but he never showed up,” Brian says, “I wondered if something happened to him, so I followed him, and after a while I realized something. His symptoms weren’t nearly as bad as mine, and they never have been. He knows how to keep that thing at bay. While I was trapped in my house, coughing up blood into the sink when my headaches didn’t keep me from getting out of bed, he was doing just fine. So much of this could have been avoided if he just told me how to deal with it. Do you think Alex would be coming after any of us now if he knew how to fight that monster?”

“I'm sorry,” she says, “Do you know what Tim did? To keep that thing away, I mean?”

“I’m positive it’s his medication. It’s the only thing that makes sense. If he misses a dose or runs out, that almost always triggers a shift into that feral state.”

“Does he even know about this? If he just got on this medication, he might not even realize what it’s doing for him.” 

“I’m sure he at least noticed how different our symptoms were. We were together a lot before-.”

He cuts himself off and takes a breath. Stifled anger radiates from him like heat. He’s quiet for a moment as he gets control of his breathing. 

“I don’t know,” he mutters, “That’s why I’m looking for the records.” 

“What happens if you’re right? And he was lying to you?” 

“Then I know what to do.” 

“And...if you’re wrong?” 

That gives him pause. As they approach the next nurse’s station, he refocuses his attention on finding the documents. Jessica’s question goes unanswered. She sighs, but she doesn’t push it. Instead she leans against the desk and watches as he looks in the desk drawers for anything relevant. She starts thinking about her own problems again. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to make peace with her missing memories the way Brian has. She looks at his camera where it rests behind the desk and frowns. 

“You don’t have any tapes from the past seven months, do you?” 

“None that would be relevant to you,” he says, “but, I know who does.” 

“Jay. Of course,” she says, “You think he’ll put them on his channel?” 

“I know he will. After what happened to you two, he’d be stupid not to, if only to make sure nothing gets lost. No telling how long that will take, though. He does love to drag his feet.” 

“I’m guessing I can’t just, you know, talk to him,” she says. 

“Alex is focused on us right now. If you go looking for him, he’ll follow you. We can handle ourselves, but Jay’s a moron. If Alex gets him now, I don’t think his luck will hold.” 

“Great,” she mutters. 

Brian pulls a small stack of yellowing papers out of the drawer and stands up. He hands her half of the pile as he begins looking through the documents. She looks down at the top page. It looks like a basic form a parent filled out before checking their child into the hospital. A little girl named Emelia with poor social skills and trouble learning in school. This page doesn’t elaborate on why little Emelia needed to be hospitalized, but Jessica isn’t sure she wants to know. She’s had enough sad and disturbing stories lately. She looks through the other forms, but she doesn’t find any belonging to a Tim. Brian finishes looking through his stack and puts the papers down. 

“You know if you have questions, you can ask. I can tell you what I do know,” he says. 

“Thanks,” she says, “Any luck?” 

“No, but there might be more nurse’s stations or a filing room somewhere else.”

He puts the papers back in the drawer, and they turn deeper into the complex of hallways. Jessica becomes focused on the crunching of glass and gravel beneath their shoes, echoing off the bare concrete walls. She looks at the shapes the cracks in the drywall make and at the soft rectangles of light throw across the floor by open doors. She glances behind them at the nurse’s station growing farther and farther away as they walk down the hall, wondering how many more of them there are in this small annex. That’s when she notices the footsteps, softer and further away, but just out of time with their own. Growing closer. 

She sucks in a breath and grabs Brian’s arm. He doesn’t say anything or try to protest as she drags him into a room. As they flatten themselves against the wall by the door, Jessica realizes he must hear the footsteps too. He turns his head to look out the window on the other side of the room and nods towards it. She hesitates a moment, but he continues to gesture towards their one exit, so she obeys him. As she lifts one leg out the long shattered window, she looks back to make sure he’s following her, but he’s not. He’s still near the door, waiting and listening. The footsteps are getting closer now. Whoever is here must be in the hallway now. 

_ “What are you doing?” _ she mouths.

He tilts his head back in exasperation and waves at her to just go out the freaking window. She suppresses a sigh and pulls herself outside and into the tall grass. She crouches down and peers over the window frame. A second later, a figure passes by the door, walking with purpose down the hall. A figure she was hoping not to see again so soon. 

_ Alex. Shit, shit, oh my god.  _

Her eyes widen as Brian creeps forward, watching Alex go. He peers out into the hallway and leans down to pick up a stone. He hefts it in his hand for a second before throwing it into the room across the hall. Even before it hits the ground, he’s turning and sprinting towards the window. Jessica can hear Alex’s footsteps coming faster, and she scrambles away from the window as Brian practically throws himself through it. As soon as his feet touch the ground, he grabs her and starts running. 

Jessica thinks she hears Alex call out, demanding to know who’s there, but she’s too focused on not tripping on the scrubby plants at her feet. As soon as they’re far enough away from the room to not be seen through the window, they cut across the stretch of open grass and run into the woods. They slow down and stop just out of sight behind a thicket of bushes. 

“Why...did you  _ do  _ that?” Jessica exclaims between breaths. 

“Sorry,” Brian says, “I like to keep him on his toes. He’s easier to deal with if he’s too busy being paranoid to think straight.” 

Jessica sighs, but doesn’t argue. 

“You think he’ll follow us out here?” 

“Probably. He won’t be hard to lose though. Let’s keep going.” 

As they run deeper into the woods, Jessica can’t help but wonder if Alex still has his gun on him. The image of him, stark and washed out in the light of the flashlight, pointing a weapon at her and apologizing as if that could ever erase his intentions, is burned into her memory. What if she hadn’t reacted as fast as she did? What if he hadn’t hesitated? It sends chills across her back. If given the chance, he could kill any of them so easily. Just point and fire. And what do they have? Their wits? A camera? Neither of those things can stop a bullet. 

They come out of the park along a deserted highway. The trees stretch out in a long line behind them, and ahead of them on the other side of the road is a field. A farm house is visible in the distance, nestled in another grove of trees. 

“We should avoid the shack for a little while,” Brian says, “Just to be safe.” 

“How long is he going to keep looking for us?” Jessica asks. 

“Could be hours.” 

“God, why does he have to be so stubborn,” she mutters, “What do we do until then? 

He shrugs. 

“Lunch?”

* * *

 

“We look like hobos,” Jessica remarks, looking at her and Brian’s reflection in the window of a shop. There’s dirt on her jeans, and her hair is rumpled and flat. Brian looks even worse, and she tries to decide as she looks at his stony expression and uneven scruff if he’s scarier with or without the mask. 

“We are hobos,” he says. 

“Can you say you're a hobo if you're homeless by choice? I mean, I'm not completely broke and I don't think you are either.” 

“That depends on the technical definition of a hobo.” 

“Aren't hobos transient, too? Riding train cars across the US, their whole lives wrapped up in a tiny sack.” 

“Maybe. I'm no expert in hobo terminology.” 

“Then what kind of hobo are you?” 

He laughs softly.

“A terrible one apparently. Maybe I should go out to the train yards and take a few laps around the state.” 

“Who knows, it could be fun.” 

“Until we end up in North Dakota, anyway.”

“At least we know Alex would never follow us up there.” 

“You ever been there?” he asks. 

“Not to North Dakota, but I have been to South Dakota,” she says. 

“Ew, what for?” 

“Family trip when I was little. My parents wanted to see Mount Rushmore.” 

“How was that?” 

“It was fun I guess. I don't remember much of it, but I remember being kind of disappointed that Mount Rushmore wasn't a huge rock in the middle of nowhere like I imagined.” 

He laughs. 

“I mean, it kind of is.” 

“Yeah but it’s not  _ flat.  _ There’s  _ hills _ ,” she says, “What about you? Ever gone to fly-over country?” 

“No. My family was never the roadtripping type.” 

He doesn’t elaborate, but there’s something in his tone that tells her she probably shouldn’t ask. Thankfully something else catches her eye as they walk down the street. There’s a small restaurant on the corner. Metal tables spill out onto the sidewalk, but all of them are abandoned today despite the mild weather. People walk in and out of the little sandwich shop the tables belong to, bringing with them the smell of cooked meat and toasted bread. 

“Have you ever eaten here before?” Jessica asks. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Brian says. 

“Their BLTs are really good, but so is just about everything they make.”

“I’m sure it beats cold gas station sandwiches.” 

“Not exactly a high bar to reach, but yes.” 

The shop is warm and full of college students, probably just getting back into their homework routines. Many of them have laptops open and earbuds in as they work on fresh projects and homework assignments. Jessica feels a flush of warmth across her face, and she wonders if anyone she knows is here. Classes probably just started up again, and at least one person in her major probably noticed her absence. At least, she hopes someone noticed. She never had many friends, but she had plenty of acquaintances in her classes she talked to regularly. If she disappeared without saying anything, someone would have to have noticed. 

“You alright?” Brian asks. 

“Yeah I just...I hope no one I know walks in. I forgot how popular this place was for a second,” she says. 

He gives a sympathetic nod and touches his hand to her shoulder. The contact is brief, but it gives her a small bit of comfort. As they walk up to the counter, she starts thinking about what she might say if she does see someone here 

_ Ugh, what's the point. I'll probably think of all these excuses and explanations and no one will even show up.  _

“Jessica? Hey, Jessica!” 

_ Shit.  _

She stops and turns around, praying there's another Jessica in the shop, but she had no such luck. She immediately recognizes a girl from her Women in Film and Literature class, a redhead with lively brown eyes and lines of ink under her fingernails that will probably never fully disappear. Over one shoulder is a worn messenger bag with pins crammed onto every inch of space available on the front flap, some of which have flecks and smears of paint across their smooth faces. She looks so energized and refreshed from the winter break, Jessica feels like a sluggish goblin in comparison. She wonders how she must look to her. 

“Oh, Holly, hey.”

“I haven’t seen you in class lately, where’ve you been?” Holly asks. She pauses a moment, taking in Jessica’s appearance, “Whoa, what the hell have you been doing?” 

“Just, uh, some hiking in the park,” Jessica says, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. She glances over at Brian who stands in silence behind her, “It’s still kind of muddy in some places.” 

“I’m going to go ahead and order,” he says, “You know what you want?”    
“Yeah, just a BLT. Thanks,” she said. 

“Oh, ok, cool,” Holly says as Brian walks away, “So what else has been going on lately? How was your break?” 

“Um, it was...ok, I guess.” 

Holly frowns. 

“Everything ok?” 

“Yeah, I just...I’m going through kind of a rough patch. I kind of had to drop out.” 

“What? Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s ok, really. I just need a little time to figure things out, you know?” 

Holly nods. 

“Oh absolutely,” she says, “You still living with Amy? I haven’t seen her around either.” 

Jessica swallows hard, trying to banish the lump she can feel trying to form in her throat. 

“Um, no, actually. That’s...actually one of the problems I’m having. I’m not sure where she is.” 

“What like...like she’s missing, or…?” 

“Well, no, not missing I guess but...she just kind of left. She might have gone somewhere with her boyfriend, Alex, but I don’t know.” 

“Ah, ok. That’s probably it. Those two are practically joined at the hip. He must be a completely different person with her than he is with everyone else, because I always thought he was kind of a weirdo, and Amy’s not the kind of girl to let herself be blinded by love, you know?” 

“Yeah…”

“What I mean is, if they up and left I’m sure nothing’s wrong. She probably had a reason. Still, it sucks that she abandoned you like that.”

Jessica folds her arms across her chest and looks away, praying for Holly to change the subject. She hopes she doesn’t notice how hard she’s trying not to let any tears slip out. Thankfully Holly isn’t looking at her anymore. 

“So who’s the scary guy with you?” she asks.

“Oh, that’s just Brian. He’s, um, a friend of mine. He’s helping me out.” 

“He go to school here?” 

“No.” 

“Hm. Well you take care of yourself, Jessica. Be careful. And if you ever need any help, you know you have people who care about you.” 

“Thanks, Holly.” 

_ I wish any of that still mattered. _

* * *

 

 

Jessica rubs her hands together as they walk along a path under a grove of low hanging trees. Tonight is colder than it’s been the past few days, and her fingers are feeling it. She reasons, however, that if she’s uncomfortable, anyone else who means them harm will be uncomfortable too. No doubt Alex has left the park by now. Serious mission or not, she wouldn’t want to be outside if she didn’t have to be. It’s only this thought and the steady crunch of Brian’s footsteps next to her that keep her from looking over her shoulder every few seconds as they walk through the humming darkness. 

As they approach the shack, she feels her heart sink a little. It may be a building, but the only thing it can really protect them from is prying eyes. It’ll be just as cold inside as out. She wonders if she can layer any of the few things she brought with her from home to stay warm. Brian looks over at her. 

“You cold?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” she says, “You’re not?” 

“Not really. Come here.” 

They walk into the small room within the shack. Brian sets his camera down in it’s usual place on the window sill and picks up the dirty blanket lying on his mattress. He puts it around her shoulders, and she pulls it in tightly. She ignores the grimy feeling it leaves on her skin as she does. She’s just glad to have some barrier against the cold. She adjusts the blanket further, trying to close up any openings, and watches Brian as he sits down on the mattress. He pushes his hood back and runs his hand through his hair. For a second his eyes unfocus, and he stares off into space, entrenched in some thought or another. Then he blinks and the moment passes. He looks over at her and his expression softens. 

“You gonna stand there all night?” he asks. 

She snaps out of her own daze and sits next to him. She looks down at his hands and realizes they’re trembling. She sighs. 

“You are too cold,” she says, draping half of the blanket around him. 

He smiles. 

“Alright, you got me,” he says. She rolls her eyes. 

“I can see right through you, tough guy.”

Despite his shivering he still feels warm, and she slides closer until their arms are touching. For a moment she feels as if she's overstepping her boundaries, but he doesn't tense up or move away. After a minute, he wraps one arm around her back and puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Any better?” he asks.

“Lots, thanks,” she says. 

She feels her heart beat faster as he scoots in closer until there’s no more space between them. Warmth spreads across her side, banishing the night’s chill until it has nowhere else to go but her feet which still remain uncovered by the blanket. She rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. She hadn’t realized how tired she was until now. After so many sleepless nights, alone in that hotel, the sensation feels foreign. Part of her brain is fumbling for words, telling her not to actually fall asleep on him because how embarrassing would that be? The other part doesn’t care nearly as much. Here, she feels safe. Here, she knows she has someone to look out for her.  

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Brian murmurs, pulling her back from the dark abyss of sleep, “I know you’d be better off literally anywhere else, but...you had the option to leave and you didn’t, so thank you.” 

“I’m just trying to help,” she says. 

“It’s more than that though. I’ve spent the past year living in the woods, looking over my shoulder all the time, hiding in the shadows like some kind of wild animal. But, since you’ve been here...I’ve actually felt like a  _ person  _ again. Like there might still be something worth salvaging after everything that’s happened.” 

“Of course there is. No matter what the world does to you or how you change, you’re still human. That has to count for something, right?” 

He takes a deep breath. 

“God, I hope so,” he whispers. 

Neither of them say anything more. Jessica listens to the sound of her own breathing as they both fall silent. She listens for the sounds of insects in the forest, but tonight is too cold for them. For once, the trees are silent as well. She drifts closer and closer to the edge of unconsciousness. Strange colors and blurry images dance behind her eyelids, seeds of dreams not fully formed. 

Brian shifts suddenly. She opens her eyes and groans softly in protest. 

“Shh,” he says. 

“What is-?” 

“ _ Shh. _ ” 

She’s fully alert now as he stands. When she looks up, he’s already pulled his mask back on as a precaution. He creeps forward towards the door. Jessica freezes, listening for what he must have heard, but the sound doesn’t come again. Her heart pounds, and she gets up, ready to flee if necessary. Brian disappears into the main area of the shack. She takes a hesitant step forward, unsure if she should follow him or stay put. She feels a tickle in her throat and suppresses a cough. 

When she hears the shout, she doesn’t get a chance to react before the gunshot follows. A scream escapes her lungs before she can silence herself. She wants to run, but her mind can’t decide on which direction. Her legs feel frozen. The tickle in her throat becomes a burn. The hairs on her neck and arms stand on end. Something’s there. She can feel it. She doesn’t want to look at it, she can’t she can’t she-

_ Bang! _

She can’t take it anymore. Even as she spins around, her mind screams at her to stop. A searing jolt of pain strikes behind her eyes as they lock onto the creature behind her. Her legs crumple. When the scream comes this time, she can do nothing to stop it. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here’s the chapter that’s going to bring the rating up from a G to a T. It’s not a big deal though. Just some canon-typical violence (that I now have to add to the tags *sigh*). Anyway, sorry it took so long to get this fuckin thing up. Last semester was brutal. But this chapter is also extra long, so yay for that!

She wakes up in a field. Her headache is so intense she can barely think straight, but before she can move to do anything about it, it’s gone. She opens her eyes and stares up at the sky. Clouds block out the sun and bathe the world in soft, gray light. She thinks it's morning, but she can't be sure. For a moment all she can do is lie there and breathe as the pain in her temples subsides, leaving behind only a memory of the ache. For a moment she doesn’t question anything, and finds she’s content to simply stare up at the clouds and exist. The moment doesn’t last long.

She groans and rolls over, ignoring the dry grass that bites into her palms as she does. As she looks out across the flat plain, she notices the camera. As she picks it up, she realizes that the battery is dead.

“Shit,” she whispers.

She opens the tape deck. Sure enough, it’s not empty, but the tape doesn’t look full to her. She frowns. It can’t be the same tape from the previous day. She feels a knot in her stomach. Is it the next day? How much time has passed?

She stands up and looks around. Is she still in Rosswood? She has to be close. In the distance she sees the tree line, though it doesn’t look familiar. If she’s still close to the park, it’s an area she hasn’t seen before. She puts the camera in her jacket pocket, but she stops when her hand hits something hard. There’s another tape in her pocket. The knot in her stomach grows tighter. Two tapes now. Two tapes of forgotten memories, and she has no way of knowing what’s on them. Not until she can find a way to recharge the camera, anyway. That moment feels so far away as she trudges towards the forest.

 _Oh God, what happened? What can’t I remember?_ _  
_ She claws her way through memories, trying to pinpoint the most recent one.

 _“Since you’ve been here...I’ve actually felt like a_ person _again.”_

She sucks in a shaky breath.

_Where is he? Why isn’t he with me?_

She fight to remember anything past their conversation, but nothing resurfaces. The last thing she remembers is them talking, and then everything goes black. She can’t lock onto a single clue that might help her figure out what led her here. The tape is all she has left.

 _And I can’t even_ watch _it!_

She takes a deep breath. She has to find Brian first and make sure he’s ok. If she can’t find him in the park, _then_ she’ll worry about charging the camera and watching the tapes for clues. It’s not much of a plan, but it’s enough to give her a confidence boost.

She sees no paths when she reaches the tree line, and the trees are different here than they are in other parts of the park. She wonders if maybe this is actually private property and not a part of Rosswood at all, but she doesn’t let it bother her. She’ll figure it out one way or another.

It doesn't feel any warmer today than it did yesterday, but she hardly feels the cold. The chill has soaked through all her clothes and buried itself under her skin, and now it feels like a part of her rather than a nuisance. She wonders, as she trudges through piles of leaves and climbs over fallen logs, how long she was unconscious in that field. Her mind starts playing scenarios where she’s attacked by animals, kidnapped, or killed by exposure, and she decides she doesn't want to know. Before long she comes to a downhill slope. At the bottom she spots a poorly maintained dirt path. She skids down the slope and starts heading in a random direction down the trail, reasoning it'll have to lead somewhere familiar eventually.

The trail is muddy and winding, and as she ventures deeper and deeper into the trees, she wonders how long it'll be before she finds something familiar. That's when she notices the shack.

Her heart jumps a split second before she realizes it's not Brian’s shack. This one is just as hidden in the trees, but it's red and made of rotting wood instead of cinder blocks. She pushes through the thin trees surrounding it and pauses in the doorway. There's thick brown paper, insulation, and various other garbage strewn across the ground. She can't even see to the floor below, if there even is one. She doesn't bother going inside to poke around. She can see there’s nothing inside worth looking at.

She looks around behind the shack, but there’s nothing there either, so she goes back to the path and keeps walking. She comes across some signs so faded she can’t read them and pieces of fencing too rusty to support their own weight anymore. Beyond, the trees continue to crowd along the trail.

Jessica pauses and takes a breath as the weight of her task begins settling in. It's going to take forever to find her own way through this place, much less find Brian or their shack. She stops and looks around at the trees.

“Brian?” she calls.

She's not sure why she expected an answer. She continues down the path.

By the time she finds their shack, the sun has migrated higher into the gloomy sky. She pauses just outside the thicket of bushes that hides the doorway. A thick feeling of dread settles into her stomach. Something at the back of her mind is whispering through the gaps in her memory, stalking along the edges, too scared or too weak to come into the light. She walks forward to the door, and the whisper becomes a scream. Something is wrong, but she can't place what. Her head can find nothing to be scared of, but her gut is ringing every alarm bell it can. It's almost enough to make her run, but she reminds herself she has a mission.

Nothing seems obviously disturbed to her as she looks around the main room. She peeks into the side room and spots the blanket lying on the ground in a crumpled heap. It's the only thing out of place, but the explanation is easy: whatever happened, they got up in a hurry. She walks back out into the main area and glances out the window. Her eye catches something near the door frame. There's a small chunk missing from the concrete, and as she runs her fingers along it, she wonders if it's always been there or if it's new. As many times as she's passed this section of wall, she thinks she'd notice a mark like this. The dent is small, but it's about the right size for…

_A bullet._

She immediately turns to look at the floors and walls again. Any sign of a struggle wouldn't be apparent in such a sparse area, but any blood would show up easily. Her search of the main area turns up nothing except another bullet mark in another wall. The side room is also clean save for a hole in the wooden closet door.

“Three shots,” she murmurs as she looks inside the mostly empty closet, “No blood.”

Someone must have tried to hide in here. She knows the door was open when they came back the night before, but it would have to be closed to get a bullet hole in it. Why would anyone hide in here, though? A wooden door isn't any match for a gun, and the closet is a dead end. She glances up and pauses.

_Well maybe not._

She realizes the closet isn't closed off from the rest of the building at all as she watches sunlight filter through the rafters above. The top of the wall stops short of the roof. With all the old palettes and boxes inside the closet, someone could probably climb up and out of the tiny room to escape.

_It probably wasn't me Alex was shooting at, then. I would never have risked hiding in here. Brian must have run back here after the first two shots were fired. Why would he do that though? Alex couldn't have cut off both exits._

The knot in her stomach returns as she considers the possibilities.

_Either that thing was blocking the other door or...or he came back for me. Maybe both._

She sighs and tries to shake off any guilt or fear. No blood means he didn't get shot. Not here at least. If the monster was blocking one of the exits, Brian must have been able to get out of the building by climbing out of the closet and running for the door behind Alex’s back.

_But where the hell was I during this? Could I have climbed up and over too? We both would have had to do it fast enough to avoid getting hit._

She looks at the pile of boxes and then up the side of the wall. She frowns. She gets on top of the boxes, but the highest point doesn't feel nearly tall enough to get her up the wall. Her arms and legs just aren't long enough to reach the few handholds there are, and even if they were, she doubts she'd be strong enough to pull herself up and over alone.

_It's not like I've had to climb a lot of things in my everyday life up to this point. Brian could probably do this, though. He's taller and stronger than I am. He might have been able to help me, but I don't think we'd have time for that with Alex after us._

So where the hell was she? Did she run through the door and out into the woods? She couldn’t have. The only reason she can think of why either of them would run into the side room would be if both doors were blocked off, but then how…?

She heaves a frustrated sigh and kicks a stone across the ground.

_I need to watch these tapes. Something just isn't adding up here, and trying to find Brian out here without knowing what happened is going to take too long._

The charger ought to be in one of Brian’s many stashes. Once she has it, the library will be the safest place to go to watch the tapes. She hopes her car is still hidden in the bushes where she last saw it. She takes one last look at the evidence in the shack before setting out to get her answers.

* * *

 

 

As soon as she’s inside the library, Jessica heads directly towards the study rooms where she knows she won’t be disturbed. She goes up the stairs and to the back corner of the library. One of the study rooms is occupied, but the others are dark and silent. She walks into the furthest one back, checks to make sure no one else is watching, and shuts the door behind her.

She connects the camera to its charger and plugs the charger into the wall. The view screen remains dead for a minute before the charge finally takes hold and the camera boots up. Jessica takes the full tape out of her pocket and inserts it into the tape deck. She rests her finger on the play button, but something stops her. The knot of anxiety she woke up with has never fully gone away, even since she left Rosswood, but now it feels like it’s growing. Squirming inside her stomach like a trapped animal. She’d been so eager to figure out what happened to her, but now every nerve seems to resist the idea. Whatever problem exists now will be entirely up to her to fix. No guidance. No backup. Just her and the footage and the few things she's learned. She's not sure if she's ready for that. She can handle a lot more than she could before, but there are still situations she’s not prepared to face alone. They're too dangerous. Too horrific.

_Stop it. You're think about this as if you have a choice._

She presses play.

The camera faces out the door of the side room. Without the night vision, it's impossible to see farther than a few feet into the building beyond. She remembers the end of her and Brian’s conversation. She doesn’t remember him getting up, and she definitely doesn’t remember the gunshot. A spray of concrete chunks goes up from the wall perpendicular to the door as a bullet strikes it. Brian ducks and stumbles forward into the darkness beyond the side room, barely avoiding the shot. Within seconds he disappears from the frame, attacking someone also off screen. Jessica hears her own voice, screaming as another shot echoes through the tiny space. Distortion crackles and shrieks around the camera’s edges as Jessica’s voice disappears entirely, replaced by the sounds of pounding footsteps and gravel scraping across the floor.

Brian appears in the doorway again. The screen goes black for a moment as he grabs the camera. As he turns the camera in his hand, Jessica gets a glimpse into the side room. It’s completely empty. The camera swings back towards the door for a split second before Brian starts running for the closet. He shuts the door behind him and runs for the pile of boxes in the corner. Another gunshot echoes through the room, impossibly loud in such a small space. The static continues to ripple through the footage, the noise building to a crescendo as Brian starts to climb.

Then he falls. He lets out a startled yelp as he begins tumbling through a carpet of dead leaves. The camera falls out of his hand, and orange and brown leaves fill the screen. For a moment everything is silent before Brian’s feet appear in the shot and he picks the device up again.

“Jessica?” he calls.

At first Jessica thinks the brightness in the footage is more distortion, but she realizes as Brian starts running that it’s not. Somehow he managed to appear not only in a different location, but in a different time as well. She wants to stop the footage and give herself time to process this, but her hands are frozen, and she can’t tear her eyes away.

 _That’s how I got out. That’s how we both got out. Neither of us climbed over or ran out the door. We_ teleported.

Brian calls her name again as he runs out of the trees and onto a path. In the distance, a figure moves. Brian freezes as the figure comes out of the trees and into view. It’s herself, looking shaken and frantic but otherwise ok. Brian breathes a small sigh of relief and runs towards her. He never makes it. Before they can get within five feet of each other, another cloud of distortion blocks out the screen and the scene changes again.

Brian stops running and whips the camera around. The long, crumbling hallways of the abandoned hospital stretch out in front of him and behind him. He stops as a coughing fit wracks his body. He draws in a labored breath and runs forward again. A blur of movement rushes out of one of the rooms and collides with him before he can get far. The camera falls again. All the camera shows is two pairs of feet, scraping and stumbling across the floor as their owners grapple with each other. A voice that is undeniably Alex shouts,

“That was her, wasn’t it? What did you do?!”

Brian shoves Alex away and runs further down the hall, out of the frame. Alex pursues, and another gunshot rips through the air, distorted but unmistakable. Jessica sucks in a breath, swearing she heard someone cry out, but the buzzing of the corrupted film is too loud. She prays she imagined it.

Finally the distortion settles down. The camera sits, abandoned, on the floor of the hospital. It doesn’t have to wait long, however, and soon another pair of shoes appears in the frame. Her shoes. The Jessica on the film leans down and picks the camera up. She blows some dirt off of it and looks around the hall.

“Brian, where are you?!” she shouts, her voice hoarse and broken.

She doesn’t run. She just stands there and looks around. Jessica would like to think that she didn’t run because she knew that’s what that thing wanted her to do, but it’s entirely possible she was just too tired and scared to keep going. There’s no way of knowing how many places she went off camera. How many times she screamed, praying that someone would hear her.

There’s another buzz of distortion and Jessica finds herself in the forest again. It’s sunset now, and soft orange light flashes through the trees as she starts walking again. She whips the camera back and forth, watching for anyone who might be following her. Then she breaks out into a run. The camera starts to beep at her.

“Shit,” she whispers. The tape ends.

For a moment Jessica’s thoughts are frozen. She didn't think anything like this was even possible. Was anything like this on the Marble Hornets channel? She wracks her brain for answers and suddenly remembers Jay’s third trip to Brian’s house. There had been so much in that entry, and in all the chaos she'd had trouble figuring out what was going on. She'd written off some of the odd things as bad camera work.

_Stupid. I can't believe I missed that._

Of course, there hadn't been anything on the channel as intense as what she just witnessed, but still. She feels like an idiot.

She takes the second tape out of her pocket. She had to have found the shack again and changed it. She opens up the cassette and slides the tape in, ready for whatever comes next.

The tape opens with a shot of the floor of the shack and the clicking of a tape case being closed. The Jessica on the film picks the camera back up, and she walks out of the shack and into the woods again.

“Brian!” she shouts, but she's met with silence.

For a moment, things are peaceful. The creature is nowhere to be seen, and no static distorts the picture. However, the audio sounds strange, hollow and tinny, as she continues through the woods.

“Hello?” she says, her voice coming out as a frightened whisper.

Then she stops. She sucks in a breath and spins around. As soon as the camera lands on the creature, watching her in the distance, the audio screams, and Jessica breaks out into a sprint. She doesn't get far before the thing takes her again.

It's night where she lands next. She flicks on the night vision with shaking hands, revealing the halls of the hospital again, though the space looks too large to be the annex. She keeps running this time, unsure of what else to do and likely overcome by fear. She stops when she hears a cough.

She points her camera toward one of the rooms and runs inside. The room must be large, as the night vision picks up nothing but the ground directly in front of her. She hears the cough again and walks faster towards the center of the room. After a few seconds, a prone figure comes into view.

“Brian!” she shouts as the distortion grows worse and worse. Before long, no sound can be heard besides the screaming of static, and the picture becomes too damaged to decipher. It doesn't return to normal, and as the tape runs out, Jessica realizes the camera must have had its battery drained completely before she even reached the field.

She sets the camera down, hands shaking. The frightened, paranoid thoughts she previously kept at bay are now seeping out of their hiding places.

_Alex caught us. It didn’t matter, staying away from the park for a while, he still found us. He’s probably still out there right now. Is he still looking for me? Or does he think that thing killed me?_

Her stomach churns and she feels sick.

 _Does he think he killed Brian? Did he_ actually _kill Brian?_

She derails that train of thought almost immediately.

 _No, I heard a cough on the tape. He was probably hurt, but he was_ alive _._

She starts thinking more about her options, her nerves firing as fast as they can manage as she starts to come up with a plan. As she thinks about Alex’s chance of finding her and Brian’s chance of dying if she doesn’t find him and her _own_ chance of dying if she returns to the hospital, she realizes there’s only one option that makes sense. For all the time she spent wandering the woods today, if Alex were going to find her, he would have done so already. Whether she goes back to the park or not hardly matters anymore. She wouldn’t be safe either way, and now someone else needs her. She stands and grabs the camera, putting it and everything else she brought with her into her pockets. She hurries out of the library, filled with new resolve.

* * *

 

She can't stop looking over her shoulder as she walks towards the abandoned hospital. The crumbling structure is still intimidating, even in the daylight, and she can't stop imagining Alex hiding inside. Waiting. Her imaginings of Alex jumping out and attacking her loop in her head so many times that after a while her brain feels mercifully numb.

The layout of the old hospital’s main building is far more straightforward than the annex, and it takes her no time at all to search the first floor. The rooms are covered in graffiti, but their size and shape is similar to the room on the tape. She allows herself to be hopeful as she climbs the stairs to the second level. It is also abandoned. As is the third. And the fourth. She has no idea what room Brian might have been in. The footage is too dark and all the rooms look the same, even with the varying graffiti and debris within. She calls out continuously as she searches but is always met with silence. She doesn’t allow herself to be scared, though. If he’s not in the hospital, it means he was fit enough to get up and leave.

_Assuming he wasn’t taken somewhere else._

She sighs and sits on the ground below a window, overlooking a dilapidated room on the fourth floor. Somewhere else. That could be anywhere.

 _For all I know, he’s already made his way back to the shack and now he’s out looking for_ me.

She groans quietly at the thought of trekking all the way back to where she came from after spending so much time driving through town and hiking through the woods. She doesn’t even know what time it is, but she’s sure it’s been several hours since she woke up in the field. Her limbs feel so heavy as she rests against the dusty wall of the hospital, and her stomach is growling. She would kill for some water. She closes her eyes and takes a breath.

 _Just a few minutes. That’s all I need,_ she thinks.

She breathes in the dusty air, feeling the weight of her exhaustion press her into the cold concrete.

_Scritch_

Her eyes shoot open at the sound. She starts forward, eyes darting through the space. A flash of beige in the doorway. Footsteps.

“Brian!” she yells.

She scrambles to her feet, her exhaustion forgotten as she lunges for the hallway. She hears a cough echo off the walls and hears the sound of feet pounding down the rickety metal staircase just outside. She throws herself towards the sound and down the stairs. They shake as the two of them race downwards.

“Brian, stop, it’s me!” Jessica shouts, gasping for air as the ground grows closer. If Brian hears her, he pays her no mind. Though it’s hard to tell between mad sprints across the landings, she doesn’t see him slowing down.

She jumps the last few steps as the staircase ends. Her feet slam into the dirt, but she barely feels the impact. Her eyes are fixed on the figure in front of her, disappearing into the woods beyond. She sees his steps falter for a second before he catches himself against a tree and keeps running. Her heart jumps in her chest as she continues her pursuit.

“Where the hell are you going?! Talk to me! Tell me what happened!” she cries.

As she crashes through the underbrush, she hears another cough off to her left. She follows the sound until she catches sight of Brian through the bushes. He’s slowed down significantly, his coughs coming closer and closer together. Finally he stops running altogether, staggering to a halt near a grove of tall, thin trees. Jessica stops a short ways behind him, and her eyes widen as she finally gets a good look at him.

Blood soaks his side in a patch about the size of a softball. It’s faded from red to more of a dark brown color, but it’s unmistakable. A long, thin, horizontal tear runs through the fabric in the center of the stain. There are spots of blood on his sleeve as well, but Jessica doesn’t see any more wounds, thankfully.

He spins around when he hears her, shuffling backwards to crouch behind a tree trunk but not making another attempt to run. She realizes he’s wearing the mask again, but she doesn’t need to see his face to see how scared he is.

“Brian, calm down, it’s me,” she says, “Are you ok? What happened?”

He stares back at her, silent and frozen in place.

“I don’t think Alex is after us right now,” she says, lowering her voice and trying to sound less panicky, “I was wandering around for hours and I never saw him. Did he...did he do that to you? How bad is it? Do you know?”

Again, he doesn’t answer.

“Brian?”

She takes a few steps forward. He tenses and takes a step back. She stops, hand outstretched and hovering in the space between them. Her heart beats faster.

“Brian, you...you know me, right? I’m Jessica. I’m a friend,” she says.

He doesn’t relax for even a moment, but he seems to pause and study her. Evaluating her intentions. She takes a shaky breath.

“Please, just...talk to me,” she whispers.

She takes a slow step forward, half expecting him to bolt, but he stays put. She holds her hand out towards him, and after a second of hesitation, he accepts her gesture. He reaches a gloved hand out and grabs a hold of her wrist. She tenses and takes a half step back, but he only uses her to help himself up. He coughs again as he stands, his step becoming unsteady. Jessica grips his arm, feeling helpless as her mind begins to spin

 _Why is he acting like this? What’s wrong with him? How badly hurt is he? Will he even let me get his hoodie off to look at it? Should I take him to the hospital? No, Alex would find us there easily. What should I do then? Do we have a first aid kit? We haven’t needed it before now. Can I move him to the shack? Or should we just stay here? What the hell do I_ do?!

“Come on, we need to go,” she says.

She pulls him towards the abandoned hospital, but he resists. She sighs and looks at him.

“What?”

He pulls her in the opposite direction, nodding his head deeper into the woods.

“Brian, you're hurt! We can't just go wandering off into the woods!” she says.

He pulls on her again, more insistent this time. She wants to argue, but she realizes it'll be like arguing with a statue. She concedes, praying that despite his odd behavior that he knows what he's doing. She allows him to pull away from her and head into the trees. He still seems a bit unsteady, but he moves with more confidence than before.

At first Jessica doesn’t recognize any of the forest around them. They take no trails through the woods, and she has to wonder if Brian really knows where he’s going. After a while, though, she starts noticing more trails in the distance that she recognizes. Before long they find their way back to the shack.

“Just when I think I know my way around,” she mutters half to herself.

She pulls herself out of her own thoughts as she and Brian walk inside. He braces one hand against the wall. The other hovers near his injured side as the pain starts catching up to him.

“Do you have a first aid kit or something?” she asks, only half expecting an answer.

He shakes his head no.

“Jesus Christ, Brian,” she says, “I…”

She glances around the shack as Brian sinks down onto the mattress in the side room. The last thing she wants to do is bandage him up with dirty cloth. If an infection sets in, there won’t be anything either of them can do.

_Alright, calm down. One thing at a time. Let’s see how bad it is first._

She looks up at Brian, who has curled into a ball in the corner of the room. He watches her, unmoving.

“You’re going to keep bleeding if we don’t do something about that,” she says, “If you get an infection, there’s nothing I’ll be able to do.”

He still doesn’t move. Still doesn’t seem to trust her fully. His blank eyes seem to say, “I brought you here, didn’t I? What more do you want?”

“You need to let me look at it,” she continues, “Come on, I won’t hurt you.”

For a moment she contemplates wrestling him to the ground, but he relents and starts to uncurl. She walks over and crouches next to him, moving slow so as not to startle him and repeat this process over again. She lifts up the hem of his hoodie and realizes this is going to be harder than she thought. His t-shirt is even more soaked with blood than his hoodie, and the fabric sticks to the wound. The gash is long, and she can’t see the full extent of the damage, but it at least appears shallow enough to not be serious. Brian doesn’t seem concerned, but she reminds herself that adrenaline mixed with stubborn pride is an awfully powerful drug.

“Oh God…” she mutters, “I’m going to have to find a kit. I can’t deal with this here.”

He doesn’t say anything, but he seems to understand. She rises and runs her hand through her hair.

“I’ll be back. Promise me you won’t leave? Please?” she asks.

He pulls his legs back towards his body and rests his head against the wall. It’s good enough for her.

“I’ll be fast.”

* * *

 

Finding the kit she needs takes longer than she would like. The store is crowded, poorly organized, and devoid of employees who can actually help her, and with every minute she has to wander through the aisles or stand in line, a new horrible thought of what could be happening out in the forest runs through her head. More than half an hour passes before she’s able to get back to Rosswood park. Her stomach churns and flutters with anxiety throughout the entire drive back. She prays he won’t be gone when she arrives. Or worse. She tells herself to stop worrying so much. That thought doesn’t help much as she walks back into the little room in the shack and observes the scene before her. 

In the center of the room is a dark, wet spot. At first it’s hard to tell, but she realizes the water has a red tint to it that gets darker around the edges of the puddle. Nearby is an empty water bottle. Brian’s hoodie and mask lie in a rumpled heap at the end of the mattress, and Brian sits in the corner as before, curled up and pressing a torn piece of his shirt against his side.

“Oh my God, Brian what the hell have you been doing?!” she asks, hurrying over.

He stirs and looks over at her as she approaches. She’s relieved she can see his face now, but as she looks into his eyes she feels a chill in her gut. His pupils are huge. She can hardly see his irises. The way he looks around the room, his eyes constantly searching, reminds her more of a trapped animal than a person. His expression is neutral, but she can see in the twitch of his mouth and the glint of his eyes that he’s in more pain than he’s showing. The chill it gives her remains even as she looks away and turns her attention back to his wound.

“Come on, let me see,” she says.

She finds the reason for the strange puddle on the floor easily enough. Brian’s wound has resumed bleeding, but it’s no longer fused to his shirt. He must have pried the fabric off while she was gone. In doing so he probably tore part of the forming scab right off. Just the thought of that makes her wince. His shirt and jeans around the wound are damp, as if he tried to wash the wound as it started to bleed again. The scrap of fabric in his hand is stained and damp, but all in all it could be a lot worse.

She pulls a gauze cloth out of the first aid kit, dampens it with water from another bottle, and starts cleaning the wound as best she can. Brian flinches a few times, but otherwise remains as silent as before. Even when she starts using the antibacterial wipes in the kit, he’s quiet, though his hands grip his knees so tight his knuckles turn white. When she presses a pieces of gauze against the wound and wraps a bandage around his torso, he doesn’t fight her or even react. Any fear he felt before has given way to frigid numbness. She can’t decide which puts her more on edge.

“I got some extra strength pain medication from the drugstore if you need it,” she says, “I won’t force you, but I think you should probably take something.”

She takes a breath, closes the first aid kit, and sits down on the mattress. She looks up and out the small windows, her arms wrapped around her knees.

“You really scared me,” she says, “but I’m glad you’re alive. When you, uh...get some rest, I’ll show you the tape I had with me when I woke up. It’s not much, really. Just...I can’t believe we let our guard down like that. Alex could have killed both of us. We need to start moving around more, otherwise…”

She looks over at him, praying he’ll say _anything_ to her, but he doesn’t. Even as the sun travels farther and farther across the sky, he doesn’t speak to her once, and as night starts to fall, she gives in to her exhaustion and stops trying to make him.


End file.
